# [EDITION WARZ] Selling Out D&D's Soul?



## I'm A Banana

So because the wind seems to be blowing in that direction, and it happens to be that time of year, I'm creating a thread to help contain the random sniping littering other threads. Specifically, I'm interested in figuring out about the "soul of the game." What is specifically D&D? What is the core appeal of the game? The thing that people have fun doing, the cause of it's existence and it's reason for being and your reason for playing are.....what?

And how does the most recent edition/trends/design of the game violate that? How does what D&D is becoming/has become/became before pervert what you think this spirit and soul of D&D is? 

And, here's the clincher: *why is that a bad thing*? Obviously, many people feel that D&D's trends now are beating and deflowering their precious game, but what would you rather have WotC publish? What new things would satisfy what you need?

My own opine will become evident shortly, I'm sure, but I'm more interested in why others feel that the recent edition/recent trends/modern design choices are spitting in the face of what D&D is to them. I wanna hear your gripes, so gripe them!

I also wanna hear people disagreeing with these gripes, so defend the recent path/design choices/modern trends! Tell me why D&D is either still being true to it's origins, or why spitting in the face of what D&D has been is a good thing for the game.

Is D&D still being true to what it once was? If it's not, is that bad?


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## Silver Moon

Ah, back to my soap box.....

It's ALL D&D to Me!   OD&D, AD&D 1E, 2E, 3E, 3.5E, 4E, 8.25E, it doesn't matter!  The speciific rule systems are just the game mechanics.  Which system is better is merely a matter of personal preference and choice of gaming style.

_The soul of the game is this:_
A DM who wants to be a storyteller/narrator and a table filled with players who have above-average intelligence, overactive imaginations and a desire for everybody to have fun.


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## Nifft

The soul of the game is secure, in a large black pearl I keep in my magnificent mansion.

No need for worry.

 -- N


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## Remathilis

The soul of D&D is a group of adventurers, of mixed race and profession, stumbling into things a nd places best not explored, fighting beasts terrible and viscious, obtaining treasure magical and mysterious, and ultimately shaping the world in which they live.

The details can vary; but the soul of the game remains exploration, combat, reward. Some DMs couch this in intricate plots, others put purely "mechanical" dungeons in to explore. Some use gold and +1 swords, other subtler treasure. Some combats are with gangs, mooks and masterminds, or orcs trolls and demons. The races can be dwarves, warforged, or all humans. And the classes can be fighters, magic-users, thieves, rogues, hexblades, or warlocks. Oh, and the world can be Greyhawk, Faerun, Eberron, Ravenloft, Athas, or the DM's own world. Either way, the generic statement stands.


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## Crothian

The rules have changed some, as have the races and classes.  D&D though is the same.


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## Andre

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> What is specifically D&D? What is the core appeal of the game? The thing that people have fun doing, the cause of it's existence and it's reason for being and your reason for playing are.....what?




Killing things, taking stuff.

And snacks - got to have snacks.


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## Dracorat

D&D is better now than it ever was.


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## Berandor

I don't care about the spirit of D&D, and whether it's violated or not.

All I care is whether I am interested in the kind of game D&D helps to set up, and whether I'll be interested in the kind of game future rules versions or supplements will help set up.

As it stands, D&D 3.5 does a good job of meeting my group's needs and styles. It's not perfect for my tastes, but it's still pretty good (and with us going Eberron some time in the future, it seems even better). And what I read about possible changes in 4e, or what designers think where the game should go, doesn't seem to be an improvement concerning our group and my own tastes.

Perhaps (even possibly) the discussed changes help get D&D find a younger fanbase again, and help role-playing to continue exist as a hobby instead of dying out with our or the next generation. That doesn't make it a game everyone should play, just out of a sense of loyalty. 

But whether it's going against a professed "soul" of D&D – who cares? If anything, change is good, and the ability to adapt necessary to survival.


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## Crothian

Dracorat said:
			
		

> D&D is better now than it ever was.




But why?  What makes it better now then before?  Not that I disagree with you, but the reasons are important.


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## Gentlegamer

The current game system published as "D&D" is a wholly different system that uses the D&D name for branding purposes.


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## Dracorat

Crothian said:
			
		

> But why?  What makes it better now then before?  Not that I disagree with you, but the reasons are important.




The ruleset is flexible enough to be tailored to people's needs. 
The ruleset is freely available, so people are out of the "I am poor" excuse. 
The ruleset is fleshed out quite well, with background, flavor text and examples
The ruleset has been seriously given an eye to balance. Some things fail, but overall, it works.
There is a great wealth of material covering all breadths of topics.
Flavor can be tailored to specific play styles, specific campaigns or specific interests.
For those of us who really like tactical gameplay, the minis are given sufficient weight in the game and practical use.
Finally, the introduction of computers in to the game mechanic really enhances the new player experience, communication, rules arbitration and in some cases, even finding or playing.

D&D is better now than it ever was. =)


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## Psion

There is no "soul of D&D". There is only how well or how poorly the owner of the game meets the needs of the audience. As the audience varies, so does opinion on this. "Soul of D&D" is just a rhetoric to try to sell your particular veiw as somehow more correct that anyone else's.


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## Nifft

Crothian said:
			
		

> But why?  What makes it better now then before?  Not that I disagree with you, but the reasons are important.




Most DMs have many years of experience.
This experience has translated into levels, and therefore skill points.
Our "Craft (Game)" check is, like, awesome.

 -- N

PS: Seriously: being older and more experienced, I can consciously make my group, my game, and thus my experience what I want it to be, rather than relying on luck. Grown-ups rule!


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## Allensh

Gentlegamer said:
			
		

> The current game system published as "D&D" is a wholly different system that uses the D&D name for branding purposes.




I agree with this statement...but I am not prepared tosay this is a bad thing. It just is.

There are some design concepts of original D&D that carried through to AD&D. Some of these carried through into 2nd edition. Very few made it to 3rd.

I do thinnk that 3rd edition is suffering from splat book bloat to almost the same degree that 2nd edition did. But that doesn't mean that the game itself is bad. It does mean that Wizards does seem to market bad things - powergaming, endless amounts of prestige classes, new 'goodies' - over good things, and maybe needs to reinforce the authority of the DM a bit since that seems to have eroded in some circles. But this is a marketing and play issue.

Myself, I am having fun with older versions right now and with C&C. But I'm not saying I'll never run 3.5 again; I probably will. But not ALL of 3.5...

Allen


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## RFisher

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> And how does the most recent edition/trends/design of the game violate that? How does what D&D is becoming/has become/became before pervert what you think this spirit and soul of D&D is?



I don't know that I would put the reasons for my preference in terms of spirit & soul. It basically comes down to the fact that I've learned to see the classic game as not broken, so the current games looks like a bunch of fixes for things that weren't broken.

Also, the current D&D is one of the few role-playing games I've experienced in which all the parts are so beautifully & carefully put together that I find it difficult to simplify enough for my tastes.


			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> And, here's the clincher: *why is that a bad thing*? Obviously, many people feel that D&D's trends now are beating and deflowering their precious game, but what would you rather have WotC publish? What new things would satisfy what you need?



The only thing that saddens me about the current situation is that I feel that the classic game & the current game are different enough to be considered different games, even if they bear the same name. I feel the classic game really is a classic that deserves better than the limbo of out-of-print. If the copyright holder doesn't feel it is valuable enough to print & can't find a partner to license it to, I wish they would place it in the public domain or at least give it out with a liberal license. (Something they've done with the _current_ game!)

Although, the truth is, the final version of classic D&D & both editions of AD&D are available as affordable PDFs. (Maybe not high quality, but it's something.) They have licensed them to a company that is publishing product based on them. (Even if some of us find it a dubious substitute.)

My personal favorite edition, however, is stuck in limbo. As is the original game.


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## Archade

I think the spirit and soul is in the understanding that the players are intelligent.  Monte Cook or Peter Adkinson said they wanted to have 'mastery' in the game - a simple system that could be played quickly, but mastered with all the nuances slowly.

I agree product bloat is watering down the game.  So is the changing of some fundamental ideas - while I like the Warlock, I don't like the concept in recent base classes of giving abilities that work all the time, instead of X/day.  I don't like the addition of base classes on the whole, any way.

It does feel that the latest products over the last while (with the exception of DMG2) are really reaching for something to write about - like the staffers are being forced to keep a breakneck pace on publication schedules, rather than put out well-thought product.

I can't fully express the 'soul of D&D', being an old AD&D and 3.0/3.5 player, but they're beginning to lose me where they are taking the game these days...


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## Philotomy Jurament

RFisher said:
			
		

> I feel that the classic game & the current game are different enough to be considered different games, even if they bear the same name.



I agree.  Sure there are similarities, but they play and feel quite different, IMO.  I don't think that's a bad thing, other than some classic versions being unavailable, even on PDF (e.g. B/X and OD&D).


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## pawsplay

To me, D&D is gonzo swords-and-sorcery, where knights, wizards, halfling locksmiths, and drunken priests team up to defeat 20 foot tall bullfrogs being controlled by tentacled horrors from beyond. It's a little chivalric romance, a lot of baroque fantasy, and more than a little game night fun.


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## Nightfall

The soul of D&D is in the Scarred Lands. I know, I had Orcus steal it for me.


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## diaglo

*in my opinion*

d02 ain't D&D. it is a different game.
it is as playable as ADnD. which is another different game.
or Hackmaster
or C&C

real D&D is OD&D(1974).


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## BroccoliRage

d02 know no limit!


Actually, I agree that D&D3e is not D&D anymore. It's still a a game with it's own merits and drawbacks, but one of the nice things about all the older editions is that with minimal effort they can all be run simultaneously. I've been doing it for years.

WOTC is selling a new and different game under the same name. That isn't good or bad, it's just irrelevant to me. I've sat as a player in 3e games, and had a reasonably good time, but I would really hate to run it. I think I frustrated my fellow players by not relying on my feats or skills or whatever, though. Oh well, it was all just arbitrary writing on a peice of paper to me. That's how it is when I play games I'm not familiar with.

There is no "soul" of D&D, that's not the nature of the beast. The game is just a game, an amusing diversion. What edition you use relies largely on personal taste.


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## Henry

Maybe it's not the "soul of the game" that's changed, it's "the soul of the players." 

As many have opined before, the focus on DM control has changed (some say for the better, some say for the worse, depends on the player's favorite RPG style). The default assumptions of the player base has changed a bit, to a more egalitarian assumption, that rules should all be balanced so that all choices are mechanically valid, that the players have more freedom on choices of race, class, character abilities, and spells, and that the DM has a limit on his authority during play. As I said before, it's gone from, "that DM rule makes no sense," to "the rules don't say that." From, "my character is cool because of Bob's house rules," to "my character is cool because of the rules options."

(There will always be, "My character is cool because of how I play him," but that was true regardless of rules set.)


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## kroh

I would think that the spirit of the game is in its classes.  IMO, If I want to run a game where the Characters are well thought out, with clever backgrounds, a twisted and fun selection of abilities, and the flaws that draw and enhance the experience of the characters, I don't use the D&D system.  If I want to get character generation out of the way "quickly" and the players don't care how the characters advance as long as they do... Then D&D it is.  

Regards, 
Walt


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## Kormydigar

To me, the new vs. old debate has less to do with soul, than freedom. The soul (or lack thereof) is driven by the players and GM and not the rules. There is a difference in the feel of freedom in the new rulesets. I know that one can ignore anything that is undesirable from any set of rules but, that's not the point. The newer rules seem to be driven by limitations rather than imagination. To illustrate the shift in mindset lets look at the evolution of gaming for a bit. 

During the early days of RPG's, there were many situations the rules didn't cover. The GM and players were expected to fill those gaps with what worked for thier group. At this time video and computer games were quite primitive and couldn't simulate an RPG very well at all. As time went on, computer games gained popularity and made great strides in simulating RPG type play. Video games became heavily influenced by tabletop style RPGs. The games got good- real good, but they were (and still are) limited by the programmers code. There are no permissible actions that are not forssen ( and written) by the code writers.

I think we are seeing a shift of influence these days. For the first time we now have D&D players with lots of computer gaming experience coming to the tabletop for the first time. Because of this reverse influence of computer to tabletop we see the effects on the feel of the rulesets. Rules to cover every type of action, parameters set up to restrict the AI (DM) and generally contain the game to " inside the box". 

This type of ruleset can easily be overcome by any group that wants to disregard what they don't want, but the feel remains. The popularity of the new rules is a strong indication that a lot of players are more comfortable with the " predefined parameters" style of rules because they got used to them electronically before ever trying tabletop play.  OK I have rambled long enough.........blast away


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## BroccoliRage

Well said, Kormy!


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## KenSeg

First off, good comments from Henry and Kormydigar. 

I do think that the "soul" of the player has changed and that this is being reflected in the mechanics of the game. I believe that the biggest difference between the old-school and newer players is our imaginative background. This is what affects the "soul" of our play.

Those players in the late 70s through the 90s took our imaginative background from literature, specifically sword and sorcery novels and fantasy. I can easily say that I have read well over several thousand books in the genre and have this deep well of fantasy background in my playing and DMing. D&D for us was a way to live out the fantasy stories that we read as children and adults and I do believe that our emphasis on the character background and roleplaying is a result of this environment.

I believe that a majority of the gamers today have a computer imaginative background, coming from games such as WOW, DOC, Everquest and such. The plots and stories in these games are poor substitutes to the wealth of drama included in literature and gives the game a more shallow feeling with emphasis on crunch instead of story. I wish that today's children would take the time to enjoy reading more instead of spending endless hours infront of the computer screen. There is a universe of ideas, plots and characters out there for you to discover. I think that you will find the investment well worth your time and will find that it lends depth and color to your gaming.

-KenSeg
-gaming since 1978


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## diaglo

KenSeg said:
			
		

> Those players in the late 70s through the 90s took our imaginative background from literature,...





i took mine from wargames and lets pretend.


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## I'm A Banana

Okay, here's something to help get at the core of this a bit more.

It has been said that the new edition is not "D&D", that it's a different game.

What has the new edition lost that the other edition(s) retained? When does D&D stop being D&D and start being just an RPG with the brand tacked on? What elements of "D&D" must be retained for it to be D&D?

Why isn't this edition good enough?

And, the corrollary to that, are those defining elements of D&D worth preserving? Are they valuable to more than nostalgia and message board bickering? Is the new edition somehow BETTER because it is different?


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## FireLance

KenSeg said:
			
		

> First off, good comments from Henry and Kormydigar.



Ditto. 



> Those players in the late 70s through the 90s took our imaginative background from literature, specifically sword and sorcery novels and fantasy.



I admit to a certain amount of sword and sorcery novels and fantasy in my imaginative background, in particular, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the Narnia series, The Chronicles of Prydain, The Wizard of Earthsea trilogy (it was a trilogy then), the Shannara trilogy (ditto), and the Dark is Rising series.

However, these were not the only influences. I also read a lot of science fiction (especially Asimov), watched a lot of cartoons such as Visionaries, Transformers, G-Force, Galaxy Rangers, M.A.S.K. and Superfriends, watched many Chinese martial arts television serials, watched movies such as Star Wars and Superman, and read various superhero comics. I also read Choose Your Own Adventure books and Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and played computer games such as Wizardry and Ultima, and contrary to Kormydigar's analysis, I got into tabletop gaming because I felt frustrated and restricted by the limited options available to me in a gamebook or a computer game.

I do think that computer games have influenced D&D and other table-top games in one way, though. PCs have become less "disposible" over the years. I posted the following in the recent thread on point buy:

In a way, I believe that RPGs have changed in much the same way that computer games have changed. The first computer games had pretty much disposable characters, such as the pellet-guzzling PacMan or the laser platform in Space Invaders. You got caught, or hit, you died, and you started over. Every once in while, you'd get a really good run, and it was immortalized as a "high score" that you'd brag about. Ironically, I think it was computer RPGs like Ultima, Wizardry, Bard's Tale and so on that introduced the idea of the non-disposable protagonist and a plot centered around him (or them).

I believe some of this thinking must have bled back into table-top RPGs because the majority of players I know don't want characters that are "disposible" any more. They have invested a lot in their characters, and want them to succeed and grow in power and influence.​


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## FireLance

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> It has been said that the new edition is not "D&D", that it's a different game.



You know what I say to that:

*It's Still D&D To Me*
(with apologies to Billy Joel)

What's the matter with the sword I'm swinging?
Can't you tell that it's too mundane?
Maybe I should buy some leather armor.
How much gold don't you have anyway?
Where have you been hidin' out lately, honey?
You can't fight monsters 'til you spend a lot of money.
Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new game
Funny, but it's still D&D to me.

What's the matter with the horse I'm riding?
Can't you tell that it's out of style?
Should I try to raise a baby griffon?
Yes you can, but it'll take a while.
Nowadays you can't be too sentimental,
Your best bet's a half-dragon half-elemental.
Pokemount, riding dog, half-celestial dire frog,
It's still D&D to me.

Oh, it doesn't matter what they say in the papers,
'Cause it's always been the same old scene.
There's a new game in town but you can't get the sound 
From a story in a magazine
Aimed at your average teen.

How about a suite of stat boosting items
And a keen holy flaming burst lance?
You could be a really great hero baby,
If you just give it half a chance.
Don't waste your money on a rod of negation,
You get more mileage from a ring of protection.
Heavy shield, animated, heavy fort, mithril plate,
It's still D&D to me.

What's the matter with the class I'm playing?
Don't you know that it got the shaft?
Should I try to play a cleric/wizard?
If you do then you must be daft.
Don't you know about the new options honey?
You get to stack your saves and your base attack bonii.
It's the next phase, new wave, balanced play, anyways
It's still D&D to me.
Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new game
Funny, but it's still D&D to me.​


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## Kormydigar

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Okay, here's something to help get at the core of this a bit more.
> 
> It has been said that the new edition is not "D&D", that it's a different game.
> 
> What has the new edition lost that the other edition(s) retained? When does D&D stop being D&D and start being just an RPG with the brand tacked on? What elements of "D&D" must be retained for it to be D&D?
> 
> Why isn't this edition good enough?
> 
> And, the corrollary to that, are those defining elements of D&D worth preserving? Are they valuable to more than nostalgia and message board bickering? Is the new edition somehow BETTER because it is different?




The new edition is different but I never said that it wasn't D&D. There are different styles that appeal to different people but I won't say that one is BETTER than the other. It is simply a question of better to whom.


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## BroccoliRage

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Okay, here's something to help get at the core of this a bit more.
> 
> It has been said that the new edition is not "D&D", that it's a different game.
> 
> What has the new edition lost that the other edition(s) retained? When does D&D stop being D&D and start being just an RPG with the brand tacked on? What elements of "D&D" must be retained for it to be D&D?




I don't mean this to be rude, but have you ever played AD&D 1e or 2e, B/X D&D, Hackmaster, The Arcanum, or Dragonfist (non-d20)? The mechanics are not the same. Combat, saving throws, Armor Class, and a host of others have seriously been overhauled for 3e. They are basically the same in all earlier editions. One can easily take his OD&D character and update it to 2e, with very little effort. You can run the different versions of the game simultaneously with little to no problem. The game, while undergoing some small changes version to version, has remained largely the same beast until now.

The fact that you asked this gives me the impression that you probably aren't familiar with older versions of (A)D&D. Am I wrong? Was it rhetorical?




			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Why isn't this edition good enough?




now who said that? it's a matter of taste is all. I feel that d20 is far too unwieldy for running fantasy games, but if someone disagrees their opinion is every bit as valid. I feel that the addition of feats and skills are too much like "special moves" in anime, comic books about superheroes, and video games. But that's me, some folks like that kind of thing. It doesn't mean it's any better or worse. Just indicative of what folks like.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> And, the corrollary to that, are those defining elements of D&D worth preserving? Are they valuable to more than nostalgia and message board bickering? Is the new edition somehow BETTER because it is different?




Better at what? Like I said, it's a matter of taste. The defining elements are things like the combat system (THAC0 or hit charts), Saving Throw system, and the attitude towards player/DM relations. That last one is a little suibjective, as I've said in the past, but if you break it down to mechanics the d20 system does not work the same way as the (A)D&D system. They are not the same game, and that is evidenced by the lack of interchangeability between 3e and all prior editions.

As far as nostalgia, I'm 24. Most people probably expect that I play 3e at first, but I don't as a matter of preference, not fond memories.

Worth preserving? That matters on if you like them or not. And anyway, who says they aren't preserved? My books are in excellent shape


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## Remathilis

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Okay, here's something to help get at the core of this a bit more.
> 
> It has been said that the new edition is not "D&D", that it's a different game.
> 
> What has the new edition lost that the other edition(s) retained? When does D&D stop being D&D and start being just an RPG with the brand tacked on? What elements of "D&D" must be retained for it to be D&D?
> 
> Why isn't this edition good enough?
> 
> And, the corrollary to that, are those defining elements of D&D worth preserving? Are they valuable to more than nostalgia and message board bickering? Is the new edition somehow BETTER because it is different?




Want my honest opinion?

O/B/RC/1e/2e D&D mentality; Its banned unless I say its ok. You are given a default set of assumptions (no dwarven wizards, clerics use blunt weapons) and they are LAW unless the DM says otherwise. This gives tremendous power to the DM to allow only what he wants for his world. 

3e/3.5 D&D menality: Its ok unless I ban it. Its the opposite view; you can be any class, any race, any mix, with any skill or feat unless the DM SPECIFICALLY doesn't allow it. This gives more choice to the players, but less power to the DM (since its always easier to say "Yes" to breaking a rule than "no" to supressing a choice)

Older D&D is Exclusive: you are allowed only what I say. 3e is inclusive: unless you say otherwise, I can play X. 

You can argue with me til the cows come home that DMs in 3e have just as much veto power as they did before. And I'll say that no matter how long they played 1e/2e, you go back to the race/class restrictions and SOMEONE will gripe. If it was so easy, why does 3 million "My player wants to play X" threads pop up here?


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## Korak

Really, the power shift comes down to marketing.  WoTC knows they can sell a lot more books if they are player focused, rather than DM focused.  So, they have shifted the expectations in the playerbase to a point where players seek out new goodies for their characters on the shelves of the local gamestores instead of the DM's local dungeons while actually playing the game.


--edit: spelling is hard


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## Crothian

Remathilis said:
			
		

> Older D&D is Exclusive: you are allowed only what I say. 3e is inclusive: unless you say otherwise, I can play X.
> 
> You can argue with me til the cows come home that DMs in 3e have just as much veto power as they did before. And I'll say that no matter how long they played 1e/2e, you go back to the race/class restrictions and SOMEONE will gripe. If it was so easy, why does 3 million "My player wants to play X" threads pop up here?




I hear plenty of threads round these parts of DMs that say This is allowed, anything more ask and I may allow it.  That seems to go along with your 1ed definition.  DMs still have veto power, just because players are whiney doesn't get rid of that power.  No one said DMing was easy.


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## thedungeondelver

It's simple, really.  The game now has to appeal to people who are all about NOW NOW NOW GIMME GIMME POWER LEVELS and I'm entirely sure that if someone had figured out a way to throw in sparkly computer graphics that lit up your character sheet every time you level dinged, they'd have thrown it in.

The game is no longer about building characters over time.  Hell, Dancey and his lot flat out said that "D&D 3 is engineered to be more fun".  Think about that.  Engineered.  To be.  More fun.  Lunacy!  Utter lunacy!  The whole f---ed up CR system?!  The bang-zoom XP chart?  All created because a bunch of marketroids listened to a tiny segment of gamers and decided that after _n_ sessions over _n_ weeks that everyone should be _x_ level because that was a more sound _ENGINEERING_ decision.  Don't believe me?  Go look up what Sean Reynolds did about Drow weapons disintigrating in sunlight.  It was nerfed because that's not FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIR.  Just like the rust monster.  Pfft.  Well somebody CALL THE WAAAAAAAMBULANCE life in the dungeon is a little DIFFICULT.


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## Ridley's Cohort

RFisher said:
			
		

> Also, the current D&D is one of the few role-playing games I've experienced in which all the parts are so beautifully & carefully put together that I find it difficult to simplify enough for my tastes.




I have never understood this POV in the slightest, although I have heard it voiced many time.

If you really have the skill to play one of the early editions, I find it unimaginable that it would be difficult for you to simply hack out that which you do not like of 3e.

For example, I can certainly appreciate why some people have great love of a simple system like OD&D.  But if I wanted to play that way, I do not see any need to use the original rulebooks.  I would just start from the barest, barest skeletal d20 rules and build up from there.  The PHB and all the other books would be relegated to DM reference books.  As 3e is so coherent and easy to remember, I would not even need to refer to these books very often  -- they would more be just for inspiration.

What is so hard about that?

Another example would be if I dislike miniatures.  What is so hard about just hacking out the AoOs rules, or most of them, and keeping movement at a more abstract level?


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## Chainsaw Mage

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I'm interested in figuring out about the "soul of the game." What is specifically D&D?





D&D has no soul.  It is the chance result of random evolutionary forces.


----------



## MoogleEmpMog

I definitely don't agree with KenSeg's description on the effects of computer and video games on tabletop RPGs.  World of Warcraft and Everquest, perhaps, but not their better-selling, extremely story-driven console equivalents.  In particular, I can't see nigh-plotless MMORPGs as the 'gateway drug' to fantasy gaming when compared to the sales of the Lord of the Rings movies, Harry Potter and Final Fantasy, all three of which seem more accessible to a younger market than MMOs, which are more aimed at adults.  If any other type of game is to blame - and, indeed, if there's any 'blame' to assign - Collectible Card and Minis games seem the more probable culprits.

I'm not sure I agree with FireLance's comments on same.  I think the 'disposable protagonist' meme came to tabletop RPGs from wargaming and has been bleeding out of the former for years.  Books, movies, electronic RPGs, and most every other form of media lack disposable protagonists.  Frodo doesn't die midway through The Two Towers, leaving Tolkien to roll up a new character to carry the ring.


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

MoogleEmpMog said:
			
		

> Books...lack disposable protagonists.



I take it you're not a George R.R. Martin fan?


----------



## Lanefan

Firelance, *wonderful* rewording, even though I don't entirely agree with it.  Well done! 

Dungeondelver, you've about got it right with the "now now now" idea.

One other big difference is in how the party is "supposed" to be built.  Older editions didn't seem to care if you had 4 or 14 characters in the party, or if each player played 1, 2, or 5 PC's at a time; there seemed to be more of a drop-the-puck and go to it mentality and the DM could figure out the rest.  Now, the game is designed around a group of 4 players running a party of 4 characters, preferably one of each main class (Fi,Wi,Cl,Ro), having 4 or 5 encounters a day before resting...feels much more like prepackaged engineered fun.

Lanefan


----------



## Kid Socrates

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> It's simple, really.  The game now has to appeal to people who are all about NOW NOW NOW GIMME GIMME POWER LEVELS and I'm entirely sure that if someone had figured out a way to throw in sparkly computer graphics that lit up your character sheet every time you level dinged, they'd have thrown it in.
> 
> The game is no longer about building characters over time.  Hell, Dancey and his lot flat out said that "D&D 3 is engineered to be more fun".  Think about that.  Engineered.  To be.  More fun.  Lunacy!  Utter lunacy!  The whole f---ed up CR system?!  The bang-zoom XP chart?  All created because a bunch of marketroids listened to a tiny segment of gamers and decided that after _n_ sessions over _n_ weeks that everyone should be _x_ level because that was a more sound _ENGINEERING_ decision.  Don't believe me?  Go look up what Sean Reynolds did about Drow weapons disintigrating in sunlight.  It was nerfed because that's not FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIR.  Just like the rust monster.  Pfft.  Well somebody CALL THE WAAAAAAAMBULANCE life in the dungeon is a little DIFFICULT.




So you're saying that they said that 3rd Edition was engineered to be more fun? They wanted to make a game that was fun? A game that would be enjoyable for those who played it? 

I'm really not seeing the problem.

I'm really bad at first-person shooters. I don't buy Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 and Halo and Prey and Fear and Medal of Honor and Serious Sam so I can have a miserable time and get my tail kicked for hours on end. I don't buy them period. Instead, I spend money on games I enjoy.

Maybe that's why I have plenty of 3e books, and only Planescape books for story from earlier editions.

EDIT: Clarification! I am not saying that the earlier editions were not fun. I only played in one AD&D game and had a great time. I have put a -ton- more of my time into third edition because of its accessibility and mod-friendly nature. Just thought I'd clear that up. Moving right along...


----------



## MoogleEmpMog

Philotomy Jurament said:
			
		

> I take it you're not a George R.R. Martin fan?




Point.  

Allow me to rephrase that: most books, movies, electronic games and other media lack disposable protagonists.


----------



## thedungeondelver

Kid Socrates said:
			
		

> So you're saying that they said that 3rd Edition was engineered to be more fun? They wanted to make a game that was fun? A game that would be enjoyable for those who played it?




No, I'm saying that the statement "engineered to be *more* fun" is a ridiculous statement written by someone who, despite his pedigree in games, has clearly lost any vision.  "More fun"?  More fun than what?  People have played D&D since 1974, yet suddenly now by PURE SCIENTIFICAL RESEARCHOMATICS it's "engineered to be more fun"?

What kind of an idiot tries to quantify how fun something is or is not?

Would Dancey point at a group of people laughing, having a good time, really enjoying a game of OD&D, AD&D, Basic/Expert (of any stripe) or 2nd edition and say "They're having less fun"?  Could he?  Could any proponents of d20 fantasy who follow WotC's party line and pay attention to the marketroids make that conclusion?  Saying your brand of fun is more fun than my brand of fun is intellectual dishonesty.  Despite the deepest desires of people who have tried to turn RPGs into pure numbers games, there is no one overriding FUN EQUATION.  Period.  Sorry to disappoint.

Oh and as for d20 being modable?  Hah.  You start pulling on one rule and the whole mess comes tumbling down, based on the way the whole system works.  I as a DM for just about any previous edition of D&D can make a rule up on the fly or add stuff or take stuff away and as long as I'm consistent and fair, or at least am percieved to be by the players, it's all good.

That's just not so with d20.  Muck with some part of the code and the whole application crashes, unless you're willing to rewrite the whole thing.


----------



## Crothian

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> No, I'm saying that the statement "engineered to be *more* fun" is a ridiculous statement written by someone who, despite his pedigree in games, has clearly lost any vision.  "More fun"?  More fun than what?  People have played D&D since 1974, yet suddenly now by PURE SCIENTIFICAL RESEARCHOMATICS it's "engineered to be more fun"?




It's a marketing statement.  I really think you are looking at it to hard.


----------



## Kid Socrates

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> No, I'm saying that the statement "engineered to be *more* fun" is a ridiculous statement written by someone who, despite his pedigree in games, has clearly lost any vision.  "More fun"?  More fun than what?  People have played D&D since 1974, yet suddenly now by PURE SCIENTIFICAL RESEARCHOMATICS it's "engineered to be more fun"?
> 
> What kind of an idiot tries to quantify how fun something is or is not?




Well, you can't market something new with, "Look, it's exactly the same as the old thing!"  I don't think there's a lot of mileage in that one line.

Yeah, I know there's no "fun equation." But I do know that I, personally, have more fun in 3rd Edition than I did in the game I played of 2nd Ed, and the other people at my gaming table, three of which have been playing for years and years, feel the same. For us, and for more than a few others, it is more fun. For others, it's not. 

But I guess to throw in my two cents all officially, I think D&D now is better than it ever was, because now I'm playing it and having a great time, whereas before I was not playing it because it did not appeal to me.


----------



## ThirdWizard

I take everything on this topic said at ENWorld with a grain of salt. ENWorld is a great site, but it's populated mostly by DMs. And, DMs who played in previous editions where they had more control over the game will probably be more put out by the more player-empowering / egalitarian 3e than Players. I have to wonder if oppinions would be the reverse in a mostly Player based community.


----------



## crazy_cat

Kid Socrates said:
			
		

> But I guess to throw in my two cents all officially, I think D&D now is better than it ever was, because now I'm playing it and having a great time, whereas before I was not playing it because it did not appeal to me.



QFT.


----------



## Son_of_Thunder

Kid Socrates said:
			
		

> Well, you can't market something new with, "Look, it's exactly the same as the old thing!"  I don't think there's a lot of mileage in that one line.
> 
> Yeah, I know there's no "fun equation." But I do know that I, personally, have more fun in 3rd Edition than I did in the game I played of 2nd Ed, and the other people at my gaming table, three of which have been playing for years and years, feel the same. For us, and for more than a few others, it is more fun. For others, it's not.
> 
> But I guess to throw in my two cents all officially, I think D&D now is better than it ever was, because now I'm playing it and having a great time, whereas before I was not playing it because it did not appeal to me.




Conversly, my group and I have had "more fun" playing 1st edition than 3rd and we've played for decades as well.

I'll add my reasons why 3.x isn't D&D for me. The arms race with each new book. New feats, classes and cool abilities. Characters at a certain level should have this amount of magic and treasure for this CR encounter. The constant looking up in rule books to see if I'm doing it right (admittedly this would come with system expertise and familiarization).

My group and I just feel like we have more freedom to play our characters instead of focusing on what they can or can't do because of class abilities, lack thereof, or magic item dependency.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Oh and as for d20 being modable?  Hah.  You start pulling on one rule and the whole mess comes tumbling down, based on the way the whole system works.  I as a DM for just about any previous edition of D&D can make a rule up on the fly or add stuff or take stuff away and as long as I'm consistent and fair, or at least am percieved to be by the players, it's all good.
> 
> That's just not so with d20.  Muck with some part of the code and the whole application crashes, unless you're willing to rewrite the whole thing.




I have heard that sentiment voiced dozens of times, but no one has ever been able to cough up an example when challenged.  Care to be the first?


----------



## thedungeondelver

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> I have heard that sentiment voiced dozens of times, but no one has ever been able to cough up an example when challenged.  Care to be the first?




Fine.

Add level limits to elves like in AD&D.  Suddenly, a whole bevy of prestige classes are out of the question.  

Remove that stupid linear XP chart and put back varied XPs by class.  Whoops, now the CR system is broken.

Take Feats away from the Fighter class and suddenly they are, by the numbers, _less_ powerful fighters than thieves.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

You can break the CR system just by having the wrong number of players in your party, lol.


----------



## Kid Socrates

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Fine.
> 
> Add level limits to elves like in AD&D.  Suddenly, a whole bevy of prestige classes are out of the question.
> 
> Remove that stupid linear XP chart and put back varied XPs by class.  Whoops, now the CR system is broken.
> 
> Take Feats away from the Fighter class and suddenly they are, by the numbers, _less_ powerful fighters than thieves.




If you take the increased amount of spells-per-day away from the sorceror, their power drops too. Take away a rogue's sneak attack, and suddenly he's a liability in combat. And if you take away a barbarian's rage and drop his BAB to 3/4, he becomes a significantly poorer warrior than the fighter. If you just throw in and rip out random things, then yes, the system breaks down. Just like any system would.


----------



## Crothian

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Add level limits to elves like in AD&D.  Suddenly, a whole bevy of prestige classes are out of the question.




Prestige classes are optional and for the higher level games.  Unless you are saying that you want to limit the levels rqaces can get but still expect them to have the cool options of those levels.  



> Remove that stupid linear XP chart and put back varied XPs by class.  Whoops, now the CR system is broken.




CR system won't be broken, you just have characters leveling at different time so not everyone will be the same level.  The CR system works with parties of differnet character levels.  



> Take Feats away from the Fighter class and suddenly they are, by the numbers, _less_ powerful fighters than thieves.




Yes, if you cripple a class it will be weaker then the others.  But that doesn't bring down the whole game.


----------



## Crothian

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> You can break the CR system just by having the wrong number of players in your party, lol.




No it doesn't.  People have been running games with more and less then 4 players for 6 years and not having any problems.


----------



## diaglo

Crothian said:
			
		

> No it doesn't.  People have been running games with more and less then 4 players for 6 years and not having any problems.



20 is optimal for D&D


----------



## Crothian

diaglo said:
			
		

> 20 is optimal for D&D




Exactly!!


----------



## Kheti sa-Menik

FireLance said:
			
		

> You know what I say to that:
> 
> *It's Still D&D To Me*
> (with apologies to Billy Joel)
> 
> What's the matter with the sword I'm swinging?
> Can't you tell that it's too mundane?
> Maybe I should buy some leather armor.
> How much gold don't you have anyway?
> Where have you been hidin' out lately, honey?
> You can't fight monsters 'til you spend a lot of money.
> Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new game
> Funny, but it's still D&D to me.
> 
> What's the matter with the horse I'm riding?
> Can't you tell that it's out of style?
> Should I try to raise a baby griffon?
> Yes you can, but it'll take a while.
> Nowadays you can't be too sentimental,
> Your best bet's a half-dragon half-elemental.
> Pokemount, riding dog, half-celestial dire frog,
> It's still D&D to me.
> 
> Oh, it doesn't matter what they say in the papers,
> 'Cause it's always been the same old scene.
> There's a new game in town but you can't get the sound
> From a story in a magazine
> Aimed at your average teen.
> 
> How about a suite of stat boosting items
> And a keen holy flaming burst lance?
> You could be a really great hero baby,
> If you just give it half a chance.
> Don't waste your money on a rod of negation,
> You get more mileage from a ring of protection.
> Heavy shield, animated, heavy fort, mithril plate,
> It's still D&D to me.
> 
> What's the matter with the class I'm playing?
> Don't you know that it got the shaft?
> Should I try to play a cleric/wizard?
> If you do then you must be daft.
> Don't you know about the new options honey?
> You get to stack your saves and your base attack bonii.
> It's the next phase, new wave, balanced play, anyways
> It's still D&D to me.
> Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new game
> Funny, but it's still D&D to me.​




Is that something you just wrote?  If so, I am in awe.


----------



## crazy_cat

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Remove that stupid linear XP chart and put back varied XPs by class.  Whoops, now the CR system is broken.



The CR system is the broken. Rocks fall. The world ends. Everyone dies. 

Roll on 4e. Fix CR. Something else is the broken. Sky falls in. Everyone dies.

Repeat as necessary.

It's a game. If you don't like it, play something else. Rocks fall. Everyone dies


----------



## Lanefan

Re: CR system breaking with large parties:







			
				Crothian said:
			
		

> No it doesn't.  People have been running games with more and less then 4 players for 6 years and not having any problems.



Perhaps, but they've had to return to the 1e seat-of-pants method of figuring out what's a good challenge for the party...which is perfectly fine given a vaguely competent DM, but it does somewhat throw the CR system out the window.

Lanefan


----------



## Crothian

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Perhaps, but they've had to return to the 1e seat-of-pants method of figuring out what's a good challenge for the party...which is perfectly fine given a vaguely competent DM, but it does somewhat throw the CR system out the window.




I never had to return to the old method.  The CR numbers are still there.  If I have 6 players of fifth level I know that usually a CR 6 monster will work well.  DMing is hard work and even for a 4 person party the game will not always work perfectly.  No RPG does becasue none of them cover everything the players and DM want to do and how they act.


----------



## carmachu

Soul of the game:

Its simple: the fact that it still feels like a game, not that WOTC/Hasbro is trying to stick a vacumn hose in your wallet with new editions.

3.0 was great. HUGE improvement over 2nd. 3.5 was......not quite the same feeling. Felt more like planned obsoleteness, if you will.

Now rumors of 4th are out. No hard details......but I dont know. If the 4th rumors were now and there was no 3.5 it be a different story.

THanks but I have had enough of that with the CCG market and Games workshop miniatures.


----------



## Henry

I'll agree with Crothian in that none of the examples posted actually break mechanics significantly, the same way that "disallowing bards and druids" broke AD&D significantly. (Closest one might be the fighters one, but thanks to Paladins and Rangers and Barbarians, a D&D party would do pretty well without fighters.)

However, when talking "soul of the game/players":



			
				ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> ENWorld is a great site, but it's populated mostly by DMs. And, DMs who played in previous editions where they had more control over the game will probably be more put out by the more player-empowering / egalitarian 3e than Players. I have to wonder if oppinions would be the reverse in a mostly Player based community.



This is an excellent example: Player empowerment and egalitarianism (through the promise of balanced rules supplements) are two ways in which the game changed at its core default level. Egalitarianism has its strengths, but its main cost tends to be sacrifice of individual group customization of their games, for books of supplements from which people pick and choose. It's admittedly easier, but for me it's less fulfilling in some ways.

Currently, we're running a wide-open D&D game with almost all supplements allowed, because we normally run core only + 1 or 2 books extra, and I wanted to try it out. The players are having a ball with it, but I'm kind of thankful it's nearing an end, because I'm almost completely burned out on it. I could have just as easily made a Core only game where the players got what they wanted by talking to me about character concept, but it NEVER happened - no matter how many questionnaires or "what don't you like", nobody ever wanted anything but what was already spelled out in a book. Instead, I'm constantly reading books, finding out if players applied various spells properly, if the feat they chose really means what they thought it said, finding out if they added a certain bonus mistakenly twice, etc. Instead of knowing how they stuff their characters have works because I helped them come up with it in the first place. As it is, I look forward to playing for a while and only worry about my OWN character.


----------



## Stormtower

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> I take everything on this topic said at ENWorld with a grain of salt. ENWorld is a great site, but it's populated mostly by DMs. And, DMs who played in previous editions where they had more control over the game will probably be more put out by the more player-empowering / egalitarian 3e than Players. I have to wonder if oppinions would be the reverse in a mostly Player based community.





Well put.  Regarding player empowerment and egalitarian  power relations between DM and players, I'd say this: it's still the DM's job to make them earn their PCs' levels and powers.  DMs still control the placement of magic items, cash treasure and above all, opportunity to use items and treasure.  Any of the tricks and nifty obscure PrC abilities that players use to get ahead in the system can be used just as effectively by creatures and NPCs under the DM's control to cut them back down to size if necessary.

Hmm... in rereading that last paragraph, my tone comes across more adversarially than reflects my actual table culture when I DM.  But I understand that has a great deal to do with my players, since we have an understanding that rules are there to frame the game fairly, not to be exploited by players or the DM.

If at some point in the future I encounter a table of players who seem TOO "empowered" or have a creeping entitlement mentality, I might change my tune... but I don't think it's the rules system that causes this mentality as much as the lack of substantive discussion (not here on ENWorld, more in face-to-face situations) about building a table culture that maintains and reinforces the DM's authority.  That vital element of RPG culture can be lost (or not built up in the first place) regardless of edition/iteration of the game system in question.


----------



## Doug McCrae

If by 'soul of D&D' you mean, necessary qualities to still be D&D, I would say it resides in:


The fantasy genre
Classes, and by extension the adventuring party in its diversity
Levels
The level track, ie the great range of power progression from 1st upwards
The plethora of monsters and magic items

Maybe dungeons
Maybe the alignment system
Maybe Vancian magic


----------



## Henry

Crothian said:
			
		

> I never had to return to the old method.  The CR numbers are still there.  If I have 6 players of fifth level I know that usually a CR 6 monster will work well.  DMing is hard work and even for a 4 person party the game will not always work perfectly.  No RPG does becasue none of them cover everything the players and DM want to do and how they act.




Plus, the 3.5 CP rules are crafted to work whether your party has 4 or 20 in it, whether they are 1st or 20th level, and each person gets a proportional amount of XP. Admittedly, I find it HARDER than the XP for previous AD&D versions, but it's logical and does the trick well. The 3.0 XP rules are what many AD&D players are thinking of when referencing 3E confusions on the XP rules. (With those, the higher level PCs get MORE XP than normal by bringing along a lower level PC!)

However, the CR's are definitely something my players keep me on my toes about. Last night, 5 15th level characters defeated a CR 17 Marilith, a CR 15 Deathshrieker, and 3 CR 8 Zakya Rakshasas, with only two characters wounded.  Guess I'll have to get tougher...


----------



## Zaruthustran

The soul of the game: sitting around with friends, exercising wish fulfilment. Strategists have board games and computer games, adrenalin junkies/competition freaks have video games, but dreamers have only RPGs. And by RPGs, I mean D&D.

That was true until games like World of Warcraft came along. Now... I think WotC is having to look long and hard at what the D&D is, and what it could/should be. When 4E comes out  it's got to be the kind of game that can thrive in a world with amazingly compelling online games. In a 4 hour block playing D&D my party and I can engage in 2-3 fights and a small amount of roleplaying. In the same block of time, online, my party and I can clear out several dungeons and--unlike D&D--can converse and role-play even during combat. 

I'm very curious to see how WotC responds to WoW.



			
				Korak said:
			
		

> Really, the power shift comes down to marketing.  WoTC knows they can sell a lot more books if they are player focused, rather than DM focused.  So, they have shifted the expectations in the playerbase to a point where players seek out new goodies for their characters on the shelves of the local gamestores instead of the DM's local dungeons while actually playing the game.




I just thought this was a really good point. Generally, there are 4-5 players for every DM / the market for player-focused books is 4-5 times as large as the market for DM books. It makes sense to target the larger market.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Fine.
> 
> Add level limits to elves like in AD&D.  Suddenly, a whole bevy of prestige classes are out of the question.




And that breaks the whole system causing it to crumble down?  Not in the least.  Assuming you actually had a sensible reason for level limits in the first place, there a number of obvious ways to fudge this issue and use level limits  within the context of 3e rules in a workable manner.

Besides I could equally well argue that AD&D is completely and totally broken out of the box because Elven Wizards can never acquire 9th level spells and cast Wish. 

Strike 1.



> Remove that stupid linear XP chart and put back varied XPs by class.  Whoops, now the CR system is broken.




First of all, if you start with a narrow-minded premise that something needs to be fixed in a very certain manner but have no coherent goal, it is trivial to declare it impossible to succeed.  

Is 1e/2e hopelessly broken if we get rid of those stupid non-liner XP charts and varied progressions by level?   Hmmm...  You should think about it.

Second of all, the CR system is just a guideline and it is sufficiently coarse that most campaigns could use it as is, even with a PC here or there up or down a level.  No problem.  Most would never notice a difference.

Third of all, we have the concept of LA that could be trivially adapted to this purpose, assuming there is some good reason for this change in the first place.

Fourth of all, you could just resort to not using the CR system at all and handing out xp in chunks that feel right.  Amazingly enough, this breaks nothing!

Strike 2.



> Take Feats away from the Fighter class and suddenly they are, by the numbers, _less_ powerful fighters than thieves.




It is true that if you make a radical change that cripples a class and are apparently unwilling to make any other changes to compensate, then the system breaks.  That is true about 3e.  That is also true about 1e and 2e and OD&D.  Duh.

Now, let us suppose you have a good reason for getting rid of Fighter bonus feats.  You could make a playable hyper-simplified custom Fighter class by some combination of the following:
--Increase HPs.
--Increase BAB, e.g. 1.5 BAB per Fighter level.
--Give special Fighter Bonus Damage, e.g. +1 point per Fighter level.
--Increase skill points.
This is not rocket science.  This is child's play.

Strike 3. 

All this shows is if someone likes one system less than another (Fine.  Vive le difference!), it is trivial to come up with completely stupid examples that allegedly break disfavored system, when the exact same kind of examples would break the favored system.  Yes, one can "prove" anything...if one has infinite tolerance for illogical arguments and a bizarrely egregious double-standard.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Re: CR system breaking with large partieserhaps, but they've had to return to the 1e seat-of-pants method of figuring out what's a good challenge for the party...which is perfectly fine given a vaguely competent DM, but it does somewhat throw the CR system out the window.




If you insist on making radical changes for vague or unstated reasons, you may have to pay a price.  That is hardly unique to  3e.  

OTOH, the CR system is already a plus/minus 10%-20% kind of thing, so if your Rogue is one level "too high", that is something that can probably be ignored completely.  Or corrected for on the fly by tiny fudges, if the DM is generally competent.


----------



## Thurbane

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> I take everything on this topic said at ENWorld with a grain of salt. ENWorld is a great site, but it's populated mostly by DMs. And, DMs who played in previous editions where they had more control over the game will probably be more put out by the more player-empowering / egalitarian 3e than Players. I have to wonder if oppinions would be the reverse in a mostly Player based community.



Speaking as both a player and a DM (player only at the moment), I can't begin to tell you how incorrect that statement is, at least from my own experience.

Looking at it from both views (player & DM) 3E has its advantages and drawbacks.

Any DM who suddenly has "less power" because of the rule set is merely letting pushy rules lawyers badger him into giving them everything their way.

In our group we have all now embraced 3E, but we all still accept that the DMs word is final. At my game last night, for example, the DM made a ruling that contradicted the standard grappling rules. We brought this to his attention; he weighed it up, and then said his ruling stood. And guess what? We accepted it. Funny thing is, his ruling was actually more advantageous for the players than a book ruling would have been. But even if it had gone the other way and been worse for the players (which it often has) we would still have stood by the DMs ruling.

I just can't get my head around this "us versus them" mentality some gaming groups seem to have between the players and the DM. In our group, we all play (DM included) for a common goal: to enjoy ourselves and have fun. How you can do that with DMs and players constantly sniping each other and rules lawyering, I don't know...

From a mechanical POV, 3E is firmly in the "bigger better faster more" mindset compared to earlier editions. An equivalent level or XP 3E character or monster is going to mop the floor with a 1E or 2E, when you take feats, faster progression etc etc. into account. And despite many arguments to the contrary, I personally feel that 3E has definitely shifted the focus from role-playing to roll-playing, although the amount varies by playing group. Now, having said that, I really do like 3E - but I would never agree that it is inherently "better" than earlier editions; in the same way I wouldn't say that a Programming Guide to C++ is "better" than The Lord of the Rings.


----------



## RFisher

FireLance said:
			
		

> *It's Still D&D To Me*



That was beautiful, man!



			
				Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> But if I wanted to play that way, I do not see any need to use the original rulebooks.  I would just start from the barest, barest skeletal d20 rules and build up from there.  The PHB and all the other books would be relegated to DM reference books.  As 3e is so coherent and easy to remember, I would not even need to refer to these books very often  -- they would more be just for inspiration.
> 
> What is so hard about that?



I could do that, but why build up from a skeletal base extracted from the d20 rules when I have a perfectly good fleshed out system that I'm happy with?

I prefer almost everything about B/X when compared to d20: Classes, races, spells, &c.

Besides, B/X is so simple & easy to remember.

When it comes right down to it, for a "metarule" to fall back on, there are things I prefer to the d20 basic mechanic that I've used even when running d20 games.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> What has the new edition lost that the other edition(s) retained? When does D&D stop being D&D and start being just an RPG with the brand tacked on? What elements of "D&D" must be retained for it to be D&D?



Eh, name is unimportant. All I can say is that they're different games, not that one is more deserving of the D&D brand.

I think Michael "Gronan" Mornard was on to something when he wrote (elsewhere):


> There are two totally different ways people approach a set of game rules (RPG or other):
> Anything not specifically forbidden is permitted
> Anything not specifically permitted is forbidden
> Which one of these you accept will make an incredible difference in how the game works. A lot of people seem to take the #2 viewpoint.



This is an interesting contrast to Remathilis' PoV.

When I first started playing these games, I definately tended towards viewpoint 2, & I think that was what drove me away from (classic) D&D & AD&D. My expectations didn't fit what the game was providing. I think my viewpoint has changed, so I was able to find a new appreciation for the old game.

(Another note is that I don't see the old game as needing _ad hoc_ rules by the DM to make up for the missing rules. Rulings maybe, but not rules.)


----------



## ThirdWizard

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Speaking as both a player and a DM (player only at the moment), I can't begin to tell you how incorrect that statement is, at least from my own experience.
> 
> Looking at it from both views (player & DM) 3E has its advantages and drawbacks.
> 
> Any DM who suddenly has "less power" because of the rule set is merely letting pushy rules lawyers badger him into giving them everything their way.




Compare to previous editions where the Players were specifically prevented from learning the rules of the game, and in which the DMG advised the DM to punish the Players' PCs if they read the DMG. Where large swaths of rules were contained in said DMG, and the Players had to rely on the DM knowing them in order for them to be enacted, unable to tell if the DM was ad hocing or if they were going by RAW.

Regardless of how you or I played, previous editions were definately less Player friendly as written.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

It is very nearly possible to run a PHB-only campaign in 3e.  There are a few gaps, but mostly things that experienced DMs could wing.

That is a pretty significant change.  I think it is reasonable to argue that is a positive change, although I can also understand that some may not see it as a practical advantage.


----------



## Odhanan

> But why? What makes it better now then before? Not that I disagree with you, but the reasons are important.



D&D, for me, is better than it ever was because it makes an excellent job at mixing playing styles and influences into a whole to which anyone can adhere in a way or another and still feel "at home" with one of its aspects or another. 

It makes an excellent job at being hack'n'slash or investigative or tactical or dramatic or whatever you want to do with it. The many incarnations of the d20 Systems, which are all basically particular applications of D&D's system, prove this to me. 

Whether you're an old-schooler or a newbie, whether you like to kill stuff or to role-play deep inner dilemmas, whether you are a fan of HP Lovecraft or Anime, whatever fantasy tastes and inclinations, whatever gaming style and preferences, you can bend the game to fit your needs. That's what's awesome about it.


----------



## Lanefan

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Compare to previous editions where the Players were specifically prevented from learning the rules of the game, and in which the DMG advised the DM to punish the Players' PCs if they read the DMG. Where large swaths of rules were contained in said DMG, and the Players had to rely on the DM knowing them in order for them to be enacted, unable to tell if the DM was ad hocing or if they were going by RAW.



And with a good DM, you never knew whether something was a RAW or a wing-it, nor had much reason to care.  I fail to see a problem...



> Regardless of how you or I played, previous editions were definately less Player friendly as written.



If by "player friendly" you mean the players having access to much of the nut-and-bolt core mechanics that made the game tick, you're right.  But, in terms of preserving the mystery, such restrictions are a Good Thing To Have.

For example, I have a Red Book; a binder in which I keep my DM tables and notes for everything from new magic items to fumbles to wild magic surges to childbirth.  Should this be player-accessible?  Is my game any less "player friendly" because it isn't?  From an admittedly biased viewpoint, I don't think so.

Lanefan


----------



## MerricB

Let's reverse these, shall we?



			
				thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Fine.
> 
> Add level limits to elves like in AD&D.  Suddenly, a whole bevy of prestige classes are out of the question.




Remove level limits to elves in AD&D. Suddenly, there's no reason to play humans (or a bunch of other races).

Heck, level-limits in AD&D were presuming a campaign went from 1st-12th level and then ended; thus, elves were worth playing with the knowledge that they'd be slightly weaker at the end. A lot of AD&D is like that - it presumes campaign play of those levels to maintain balance.

D&D 3E doesn't presume such (as much; although see Mystic Theurge for exception). Instead it believes that most classes should be viable at ALL levels of play.



> Remove that stupid linear XP chart and put back varied XPs by class.  Whoops, now the CR system is broken.




Put a linear XP chart in AD&D. Oops, rogues are now impossibly weak.



> Take Feats away from the Fighter class and suddenly they are, by the numbers, _less_ powerful fighters than thieves.




This one cracks me up.

AD&D actually changed the balance of Fighters significantly with Unearthed Arcana. Either fighters were too weak before (and thus for 7 years had been underpowered), or fighters became much, much stronger!

Consider a fighter with a 17 Str. In AD&D before UA, he had a THAC0 of 19 and +1 damage. In AD&D after UA, he had a THAC0 of 16 and +4 damage. Talk about a big change. In a system where HP were much lower, an additional +3 damage per strike was huge.


----------



## mhacdebhandia

Zaruthustran said:
			
		

> The soul of the game: sitting around with friends, exercising wish fulfilment.



Man, I hate the sentiment that "roleplaying" = "wish fulfilment".


----------



## Thurbane

There is definitely more of a "DM versus player" vibe than "a group of friends all trying to have fun together" vibe from a lot of what I read online. Whether or not this is related to the most recent editions I couldn't say for sure, but I strongly suspect the "airtight legalese" that the books attempt to capture with their rules is a contributing factor. All of a sudden it's not as much about a DM interpreting rules or adventure in a way he considers the most fun, or convenient, or whatever - it's more about the players being able to jump up and shout "OBJECTION!" every time they perceive that the DM has stepped outside the RAW.

1E and 2E had their flaws, but guess what - so do 3E and 3.5E. No such thing as the "perfect" roleplaying system exists, or ever will as far as I'm concerned. There is only what works better for individuals and groups. While you could certainly argue that 3E is more coherent or more comprehensive and than 1E/2E, I defy anyone to show me a mathematical formula that either of those qualities equals "better" or more importantly "more fun".


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> 1E and 2E had their flaws, but guess what - so do 3E and 3.5E. No such thing as the "perfect" roleplaying system exists, or ever will as far as I'm concerned.




QFT.

Cheers!


----------



## Crothian

Thurbane said:
			
		

> There is only what works better for individuals and groups. While you could certainly argue that 3E is more coherent or more comprehensive and than 1E/2E, I defy anyone to show me a mathematical formula that either of those qualities equals "better" or more importantly "more fun".




Okay: coherent + comprehensive = more fun


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> There is definitely more of a "DM versus player" vibe than "a group of friends all trying to have fun together" vibe from a lot of what I read online...




The trouble is that you only hear of the problems online, not of all the groups that were happily playing along. If the 'net had been around during 1E, you'd had heard related talk.

Look at Gary Gygax discussing the problems of Monty Haul DMs and Killer DMs in the AD&D DMG! The issues of player vs. DMs have been around for a long, long time. Hackmaster, with its DM vs Players set up isn't aping 3e... no, it's classic AD&D, I'm afraid.

The difference now is that people have quick and responsive forums to air their grievances.

3E codifies its rules to a greater extent than AD&D, certainly, but AD&D itself is the result of a greater codification of its rules than oD&D. When you have tournament play, then a rules base that everyone can agree on is paramount! It's fine for the DM to make up rules for his or her personal group, but once that DM is running a group of strangers, having a rule to resolve if a fighter can climb a cliff is suddenly useful.

Then too, D&D has _always_ been an evolving game, with new subsystems being added (and discarded) ever since it was released. AD&D is something really strange in that it represented something that Gary put together with a lot of suggestions from his friends, but never played -as is-. (I have a feeling that 2E's initiative system is a lot closer to what Gary used!)

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

Crothian said:
			
		

> Okay: coherent + comprehensive = more fun



Sorry, should have posted *valid* mathematical formula, rather than a subjective personal opinion formatted as a mathematical formula.   

I'm sorry, I just don't see that more comprehensive and coherent rules automatically equals more fun. It certainly helps, but does not automatically equate. That would be like saying Chess has more complex rules than Checkers, therefore must be more fun.

Perhaps coherent wasn't the right word. Gah, I always have trouble getting my point across properly.


----------



## Crothian

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Sorry, should have posted *valid* mathematical formula, rather than a subjective personal opinion formatted as a mathematical formula.
> 
> I'm sorry, I just don't see that more comprehensive and coherent rules automatically equals more fun. It certainly helps, but does not automatically equate. That would be like saying Chess has more complex rules than Checkers, therefore must be more fun.




This is all subjective personal opinion, and that equation doesn't even represent mine.  I think you are getting hung up by the marketing words as if they are fact.  It's like any commercial on the TV not a scientific conclusion.


----------



## Thurbane

Merric, very good points.

Crothian, also good point - but actually I wasn't referring to the ad campaign, rather the opinion I see from some people here and elsewhere that there is some definable way of proving 3E is superior to earlier editions.

I will readily admit I'm a little defensive of 1E & 2E, since they were my bread and butter for more than 15 years - it just irks me when some people complain about the problems in earlier editions when these problems are from a totally subjective point of view.

Classic example - awarding XP and arranging encounters in 1E/2E and the CR/XP system of 3E/3.5E. I constantly see people saying how terrible the older systems were, whereas I find the new system much worse for my groups purposes. Again, highly subjective.


----------



## Crothian

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Crothian, also good point - but actually I wasn't referring to the ad campaign, rather the opinion I see from some people here and elsewhere that there is some definable way of proving 3E is superior to earlier editions.




So what?  In the end you are not going to convince them that they are wrong.  Just like if I tried my darnest I could not prove to Diaglo the greatness of d02.  There are thousands of different thoughts on D&D and here on EN World there are twice that because it is the internet and people make things up and act with out consequance here.  I've played many editions of the game, had fun with all of them.  And no one can ever take that away from me.  Until I get alzheimer's that is.


----------



## Destil

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Firelance, *wonderful* rewording, even though I don't entirely agree with it.  Well done!
> 
> Dungeondelver, you've about got it right with the "now now now" idea.
> 
> One other big difference is in how the party is "supposed" to be built.  Older editions didn't seem to care if you had 4 or 14 characters in the party, or if each player played 1, 2, or 5 PC's at a time; there seemed to be more of a drop-the-puck and go to it mentality and the DM could figure out the rest.  Now, the game is designed around a group of 4 players running a party of 4 characters, preferably one of each main class (Fi,Wi,Cl,Ro), having 4 or 5 encounters a day before resting...feels much more like prepackaged engineered fun.
> 
> Lanefan



No. The older editions didn't give you any advice at all. This is a point I see people constantly making about 3E and it's just wrong, the same thing with the idea of a standard GP wealth valve.

Old Editions of the game gave you almost nothing. You'd know that the adventure was for however many players of whatever level. That's it. No information on class, no information on how many magical items they should have.

The CR & GP systems in 3.X does not say "You must have 4 PCs in each class." It lets you know that a CR 12 encounter will take about 1/4th of the resources for such a group at 12th level. *That's it!* I never get how people campaign about this. It's information, not adventure design for morons. You can’t just drop 2+1d4 CR encounters of EL (Party Level-2 + 1d4) into an area expect a good adventure. All the system is designed to do is to let you know the *relative* power of various monsters.

The same thing for the GP valve. The DM is under no obligation to give out treasure based on the tables. But it's nice to know that "hey, when we say this encounter / adventure is balanced for a 4th level party we assume they have 1,500 GP of magical items each, just so you know".

The ‘problem’ only arises when there's an expectation by the players that there will be so much treasure, that they will face encounters designed for the classic 4, that they will gain levels so fast... These are all play style decisions. These are issues within a gaming group, flaws in the system. I'll be the first to amid that issues with player expectation are worse by these assumptions, but all the info given on how the system works in the DMG makes it very easy to change these to suit your group.

I'll agree that the way the rules are presented can lead to powers with "Player Over Empowerment", and this is part of them. But I really get sick of people reading to much into these assumptions: knowing what assumptions went into CR and EL are not a flaw in the game, they're a huge strength. There's a lot of room, I think, for a product that looks at the basic assumptions made by the core rules and tries to guide a DM through adventure/campaign/world design if they change them (does the DMG2 cover this at all?).

In earlier editions if you had a party with no magical healing can you throw more back to back encounters at them than a party all made up of mult/dual class clerics? Absolutely? Can you do the same in 3E? Absolutely!


----------



## FireLance

Kheti sa-Menik said:
			
		

> Is that something you just wrote?  If so, I am in awe.



No need for awe. I wrote it a couple of years ago in response to this thread.


----------



## Silver Moon

Destil said:
			
		

> No. The older editions didn't give you any advice at all.....Old Editions of the game gave you almost nothing.



I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you about that.   The vast majority of the first 60 issues or so of Dragon Magazine are primarily advice.   The AD&D1E DMG is packed full of advice.   Gaming conventions and gaming stores were also great sources for advice as well, especially given the limited number of modules initially available.  It was very easy to find somebody who had run the slaver series, giant series or drow series before who would give you tips and suggestions.


----------



## Glyfair

MerricB said:
			
		

> The trouble is that you only hear of the problems online, not of all the groups that were happily playing along. If the 'net had been around during 1E, you'd had heard related talk.



In fact, if you read the letter columns (and later forum column) in _Dragon_ magazine from the time, you'll see the related talk.


----------



## Hussar

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you about that.   The vast majority of the first 60 issues or so of Dragon Magazine are primarily advice.   The AD&D1E DMG is packed full of advice.   Gaming conventions and gaming stores were also great sources for advice as well, especially given the limited number of modules initially available.  It was very easy to find somebody who had run the slaver series, giant series or drow series before who would give you tips and suggestions.




The problem with that is, there are vastly more gamers that have never been to a convention than those who did.  There are also a large majority of gamers whose only contact with other gamers back then was in the pages of Dragon.  If you happened not to subscribe, then, you were pretty much SOL trying to find anyone who knew anything about the game other than the people you already played with.

While the 1e DMG is packed with advice, it is written in such a dense and almost erratic manner that trying to plow through it is a chore in and of itself.  While I loved 1e in the day, I was never a fan of Gygax's writing style.  IMO, one should not coin new terms in a rulebook without defining them at least once somewhere in the book.

Maybe it's because I didn't live in an area with lots of gamers.  Unless you had access to some pretty select areas of the country, there was pretty much no help forthcoming.


----------



## MerricB

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you about that.   The vast majority of the first 60 issues or so of Dragon Magazine are primarily advice.   The AD&D1E DMG is packed full of advice. ...




It is probably worth looking at the advice purely in terms of creating adventures... there wasn't all that much in core AD&D (although Moldvay+ Basic D&D did a great job there). Even so, there's a big emphasis on the dungeon style of adventure creation. The balance of monsters to PC is somewhat determined by the dungeon level. 

Wilderness adventuring is just deadly for low-level PCs! (One wonders how pioneers survive...)

This "mega-dungeon" balance style can also be called status-quo, where the players determine the difficulty of the adventure by how deep they go into the dungeon. Of course, for PCs who stay on the top level of the dungeon, XP awards are reduced. (See the 1e DMG for challenge adjustments to XP).

With the "Giants" series, we have more of the story-based adventure, where the difficulty of the encounters is based on the level of the participants. There is a caveat here in the case of Giants due to the high level of the PCs - high level PCs have a much easier time of things in AD&D than 3E. They're not invulnerable, but the threats don't instant-kill so much; hit points are high and damage values are much lower... although giants can hit hard!

Tracy Hickman proved a very strong proponent of the story adventure; see Pharoah, Oasis, Lost Tomb, Ravenloft, and, later, Dragonlance. 

The Dragonlance saga of adventures is amazing in its scope, vision and execution. It is not perfect. The chug-chug of the railroad is palpable (especially in DL2). However, it brought to the forefront an aspect you won't find in Gygax's adventures: time. Events happen, relentlessly driving the heroes before them. The armies don't stop because the PCs need to explore a dungeon! The world keeps going.

(This isn't to say that those playing, say, _Temple of Elemental Evil_ won't have a sense of time and the world moving around them, but it's entirely in the hands of the DM. The adventure isn't helping much).

The Dragonlance designers also learnt as they went along. Plot-immunity (for PCs and NPCs) was proven to be a bad thing, and died. Things got better.

In Dragonlance you can see the seeds of _The Red Hand of Doom_. 

Advice for story-based adventures? Did it exist in the AD&D days? Well, yes, it did. See the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide (1986) and the Dungeon Master's Design Kit (1988).

This is late AD&D, though. We're moving onto the excesses of the 2e days, and the _Avatar Trilogy_ is on the horizon - one of the worst examples of railroading and NPCs as Gods you've ever seen.

Despite all this, the CR system of 3e is noticably absent, as is advice as to what monsters would be an appropriate challenge for a group of X level characters. 1E comes sort of close with the XP advice, but it's flawed. (A group of 6 1st level PCs need to fight 2 Ogres to get full XP...) There's even less in 2e! (Heck, I'm not quite sure there's a DMG in 2e!)

For those familiar with early issues of The Dragon - was there much in there about balancing encounters? I've got the Dragon CD-ROM Archive, but I can't remember it having that much about dungeon and adventure design (beyond new nasty traps and monsters!)

In a lot of ways, the mega-dungeon environment was expected for the first adventures. It provided training wheels so the DM (and players) could learn how tough monsters were. Later on, the DM could do more story-based stuff, with a much better grasp of how difficult monsters were from experience.

I'm happy with CR - if not least because there's a *lot* of monsters out there now. They can be deceptive as to their power level, and I'm happy to take any further guidance that I can get. Sure, it's not 100% accurate, but it's a good guide.

Cheers!


----------



## jdrakeh

Well, I don't think D&D has "sold out" or anything, but I _do_ think it has changed mechanically (thematially, it's still firmly intact, though). I own a huge lot of AD&D 1e books, as well as the AD&D 3.5 core books. I use adventures for both interchangeably between the two systems (for example, I'm planning to use a lot of the WotC freebies with AD&D in the near future, and I've used a lot of old 1e Dragon adventures with D&D 3.5). 

The primary diffference for me is that, when I want slightly more lethal combat, slower level progression, and unpredicatble encounters -- I choose AD&D 1e. When I want actual _skills_ (i.e., learned character aptitudes), cinematic combat, and balanced encounters -- I go with D&D 3.5. Thematically, both games are all about killing things and taking stuff, so what game I play depends on _how_ I want to kill things and take stuff when the mood strikes me.


----------



## jdrakeh

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you about that.   The vast majority of the first 60 issues or so of Dragon Magazine are primarily advice.   The AD&D1E DMG is packed full of advice.   Gaming conventions and gaming stores were also great sources for advice as well, especially given the limited number of modules initially available.  It was very easy to find somebody who had run the slaver series, giant series or drow series before who would give you tips and suggestions.




Agreed -- the AD&D 1e DMG is roughly 70% advice with a few combat systems (the grappling rules, most notably) and random item, location, and encounter generation tables thrown in for good measure.

[Edit: Er... GOOD measure, not GOOF measure.]


----------



## MerricB

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Agreed -- the AD&D 1e DMG is roughly 70% advice with a few combat systems (the grappling rules, most notably) and random item, location, and encounter generation tables thrown in for goof measure.




Quoting you now before you edit. 

Cheers!


----------



## Hussar

> The primary diffference for me is that, when I want slightly more lethal combat, slower level progression, and unpredicatble encounters -- I choose AD&D 1e.




The last two I agree with, but more lethal combat?  That certainly wasn't my experience, at least, beyond second level.  Good grief, there isn't a creature in 1e other than dragons, that could do enough damage to drop a 4th level fighter in 1 round.  Magical effects, maybe, but straight up melee damage?  Not a chance.  Never mind the 42 hp giants .  I have found 3e FAR and away more lethal than 1e.  I'm still averaging 1 death every 4 sessions in my World's Largest Dungeon game and the party has 5 PC's and standard wealth.

My mileage really, really varied.


----------



## Silver Moon

Hussar said:
			
		

> Maybe it's because I didn't live in an area with lots of gamers.  Unless you had access to some pretty select areas of the country, there was pretty much no help forthcoming.



Okay, I'll admit that I was probably spoiled back then living here in New England, the college capital of the world, where in the early 80's there was no problem finding a D&D game to play in or people to ask advice from.    

For those of you with the Dragon CD look up the old "From the Sorceror's Scroll" columns, they are filled with early advice to help get a DM thinking in different directions.   And as stated by many earlier in this thread, one other major source was fantasy literature which helped to mold many a campaign.


----------



## Melan

The primary difference in spirit I can put my hands on is how the game has become lost in mechanics. While 3e's rules are superior to older editions - although those were by no means so flawed as to seriously impact gameplay, as evident from D&D's enduring popularity - the sheer mindless focus on fine-tuning these mechanics makes the game as a whole less palatable. The destruction of the rust monster is a prime example of this mindless tinkering, where a cool, if unbalanced, concept got lost in numerically sound and "safe" mediocrity.

Then again, I have already moved on, so wherever WotC goes with D&D is of little concern to me.


----------



## FireLance

Melan said:
			
		

> The primary difference in spirit I can put my hands on is how the game has become lost in mechanics. While 3e's rules are superior to older editions - although those were by no means so flawed as to seriously impact gameplay, as evident from D&D's enduring popularity - the sheer mindless focus on fine-tuning these mechanics makes the game as a whole less palatable. The destruction of the rust monster is a prime example of this mindless tinkering, where a cool, if unbalanced, concept got lost in numerically sound and "safe" mediocrity.



Oddly, it's the spirit of continuously tinkering with and trying to improve the rules that I like the most about 3e. In the space of a few short years, I've seen many innovative mechanics that are both cool and balanced (in my opinion, anyway): the scout's skirmish ability, the warlock's at will abilities, "true" specialists like the warmage, the dread necromancer and beguiler, systems that balance abilities by the encounter like those in Magic of Incarnum and The Book of Nine Swords, etc.

I'll take cool and balanced over cool and unbalanced any day, and if tinkering can turn cool and unbalanced into cool and balanced, what have we lost?


----------



## Henry

Melan said:
			
		

> The destruction of the rust monster is a prime example of this mindless tinkering, where a cool, if unbalanced, concept got lost in numerically sound and "safe" mediocrity.




To be fair here, are you talking about Mike Mearls "Reimagining" of the Rust Monster, or the actual 3.0 or 3.5 Rust Monster? The actual Rust Monster still rusts the heck out of metal stuff, even though there is a save involved, as opposed to the old days when it was "10% chance per plus it didn't rust."

Mearls' reimagining of the "Rubber Monster" (the one that added penalties to attack and damage temporarily) is not official, it's just a _"what I would do if I were designing him from scratch."_


----------



## Henry

FireLance said:
			
		

> I'll take cool and balanced over cool and unbalanced any day, and if tinkering can turn cool and unbalanced into cool and balanced, what have we lost?




In my opinion, we begin to lose the desire of your average gamer to want to tinker with something that doesn't have an official alternative. The current player line of thinking "If' it's not WotC official, it's crap" has begun to increasingly bug me, lately. It's not even WotC's fault, but it's an undercurrent that has increased over the past few years.


----------



## WizarDru

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> No, I'm saying that the statement "engineered to be *more* fun" is a ridiculous statement written by someone who, despite his pedigree in games, has clearly lost any vision.  "More fun"?  More fun than what?  People have played D&D since 1974, yet suddenly now by PURE SCIENTIFICAL RESEARCHOMATICS it's "engineered to be more fun"?
> 
> What kind of an idiot tries to quantify how fun something is or is not?




Dancey's point comes from a fairly amusing quote he mentions in Mike Mearls' blog:_
"Dave Wise, who was one of my Brand Managers at WotC, and was a talented writer and editor for TSR, is married to the person who first made the observation, after watching his gaming group, that D&D seemed like 20 minutes of fun packed into four hours - which was her way of saying “shouldn’t this game be more fun, considering the work and time everyone seems to be putting into it?”"_

Dancey wasn't trying to make a game that was 'more fun' so much as make a game that allowed you to get more time with what their research showed D&D players considered the 'fun' part as opposed to the parts that were perceived as necessary evils to play.  The truth of that is left as an exercise to the reader, but I think it's fair to say that Dancey and the 3.X teams had the intent of streamlining the game.

One thing that WotC's research revealed was that most campaigns lasted about a year, for a variety of factors.  Further, they learned that most campaigns didn't reach advance to the higher levels of D&D and that essentially, large portions of the rules were not actually being used very often.  You can often see threads discussing how there isn't enough time to play all the campaigns you'd like, for example.   Plenty of threads have commentary about how a game broke up and a new game has started, for a host of reasons.  Monte, when discussing the advantages of a class-based system, discussed at length on his website how the level system is a variation of the carrot-and-stick, and why that was a good thing.  They believed that designing the system to keep players interested and keep products moving (and therefore keeping the system current and in print) was a laudable goal, which I happen to agree with.  Monte's opinion of 3.5 obviously was different, but he conceded that he understood the financial motivations that would eventually demand it's presence.



			
				Henry said:
			
		

> The current player line of thinking "If' it's not WotC official, it's crap" has begun to increasingly bug me, lately. It's not even WotC's fault, but it's an undercurrent that has increased over the past few years.




The problem is that the glut gave us a LOT of CRAP, and even the the cream has risen to the top, some folks were burned pretty bad.  Also, WotC's material enjoys a level of distribution no other materials do, really.  Getting Complete Mage won't be a problem, but getting Ptolus is more of a challenge, unless you're really into pre-ordering or online purchasing.  The impulse buy is effectively dead for non-WotC/non-Green Ronin/non-Necromancer products.


----------



## Melan

Henry said:
			
		

> Mearls' reimagining of the "Rubber Monster" (the one that added penalties to attack and damage temporarily) is not official, it's just a _"what I would do if I were designing him from scratch."_



It is, however, a fascinating glimpse into how a Wizards designer thinks about the game and where it should go. "Towards blandness" seems to be the prevailing though...


----------



## Henry

WizarDru said:
			
		

> The impulse buy is effectively dead for non-WotC/non-Green Ronin/non-Necromancer products.




True - it exists in a pale shadow known as PDF purchasing. 

However, part of the effect of the "non-wotC d20 is crap" phenomemon is that more and more people turn to WotC for ALL their rules, rather than look at other sources, or even design it themselves. In 2nd edition, we frequently gathered net spellbooks online, we made up our own spells, we suggested special abilities to add to our characters, we orchestrated with the DM to create special magic items, and he'd decide what we needed to collect to make them, etc. It felt like a lot more organic creation process in the game than gathering info from a supplement and asking the DM for a "yes/no" vote - and from conversations over on the Wotc Forums, some DM's don't even realize they get a vote to begin with!!!

Admittedly, in 1E we didn't know that such customizing existed, and often just stayed strictly within the rules. Hopefully, the newer crowds of players will realize this, and open their doors later to more than just cherry-picking from books just as we did.


----------



## diaglo

Henry said:
			
		

> Admittedly, in 1E we didn't know that such customizing existed, and often just stayed strictly within the rules. Hopefully, the newer crowds of players will realize this, and open their doors later to more than just cherry-picking from books just as we did.




sucks to be you then, mang. you should have started with OD&D(1974) or done a bit more research into the origins of 1edADnD.

we always customized.


----------



## Henry

diaglo said:
			
		

> sucks to be you then, mang. you should have started with OD&D(1974) or done a bit more research into the origins of 1edADnD.
> 
> we always customized.




Did the people you first learned Wargames from first customize their rules when THEY started playing wargames?  Everybody's gotta start somewhere, and until the advent of the internet, for me the beginning WAS the Moldvay Basic D&D set. There WAS no other set before this one. 

(And, wierdly enough, I and my player DID customize that game, because we were so young we didn't know how to actually play it. We didn't even use a die roll until years later!) When playing with my second group, we played AD&D, but they were used to just using it straight out of the book.


----------



## Kormydigar

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Dancey wasn't trying to make a game that was 'more fun' so much as make a game that allowed you to get more time with what their research showed D&D players considered the 'fun' part as opposed to the parts that were perceived as necessary evils to play.  The truth of that is left as an exercise to the reader, but I think it's fair to say that Dancey and the 3.X teams had the intent of streamlining the game.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> WizarDru said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I understand that the redesign tried very hard to accomplish streamlining. If the goal was to increase the "fun" time then why did WOTC design a system that makes statting up NPC's such a labor intensive chore. When I played Basic or AD&D an NPC, even a higher level one, could be statted up in minutes. Designing plots and motivations is the fun part of adventure design for me, not spending hours on nuts and bolts.
Click to expand...


----------



## diaglo

Henry said:
			
		

> Did the people you first learned Wargames from first customize their rules when THEY started playing wargames?  Everybody's gotta start somewhere, and until the advent of the internet, for me the beginning WAS the Moldvay Basic D&D set. There WAS no other set before this one.





Chess was my first wargame


----------



## ThirdWizard

Lanefan said:
			
		

> And with a good DM, you never knew whether something was a RAW or a wing-it, nor had much reason to care.




Whether there's a problem or not isn't the point. The point is that ENWorld is made up of DMs and mostly old school gamers, so the viewpoints herein are going to be biased toward more power to DMs. Just because its popular oppinion among ENWorlders does not make it popular oppinion among gamers at large. It doesn't mean it _isn't_ popular oppinion among gamers at large, either, but it does mean I'm sprinkling salt on it, as I advise others to do.



			
				Thurbane said:
			
		

> There is definitely more of a "DM versus player" vibe than "a group of friends all trying to have fun together" vibe from a lot of what I read online.




Dear lord man! You're forming oppinions about how people play based on what you read on the _internet_? The internet is frought with complainers, trolls, and angry angry people. Is someone more likely to make a post about a great gaming experience or a horrible gaming experience? The latter by a long shot. If you go by what you read on the internet, you get a very skewed version of reality.

The internet is a great place to get ideas for your own game, to debate interesting topics, and to joke around, but there are limits to the information provided on it. People are just more likely to rant than rave, and I don't think that behavior is limited to the internet either.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Kormydigar said:
			
		

> I understand that the redesign tried very hard to accomplish streamlining. If the goal was to increase the "fun" time then why did WOTC design a system that makes statting up NPC's such a labor intensive chore. When I played Basic or AD&D an NPC, even a higher level one, could be statted up in minutes. Designing plots and motivations is the fun part of adventure design for me, not spending hours on nuts and bolts.




It is still possible to stat an NPC up in minutes.  

Just because it is possible to spend hours optimizing every stat point, feat, skill point, and gold piece alloted under the NPC wealth guideline does not mean you are obligated to do so.

It is pretty simple to cook up a standard feat progression or two for each class.  Simplifying the process hurts the NPC a bit in flexibility, but so what?  How likely is an NPC to live long enough to benefit from an interesting feat choice?  Nearly zero.  If it is not completely obvious which feat make sense for this NPC, then you are better off giving him Improved Toughness, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, or something simple like that and not overthinking.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Dear lord man! You're forming oppinions about how people play based on what you read on the _internet_? The internet is frought with complainers, trolls, and angry angry people. Is someone more likely to make a post about a great gaming experience or a horrible gaming experience? The latter by a long shot. If you go by what you read on the internet, you get a very skewed version of reality.




Good points, ThirdWizard.

Even people who engage in very nasty heated arguments on these boards would probably get along just fine sitting at a gaming table.


----------



## Remathilis

MerricB said:
			
		

> (Heck, I'm not quite sure there's a DMG in 2e!)




Oh, there was. Allow me to share with you some of its "gems"



			
				DMG2e said:
			
		

> Being a good Dungeon Master involves a lot more than knowing the rules. It calls for quick wit, theatrical flair, and a good sense of dramatic timing—among other things. Most of us can claim these attributes to some degree, but there's always room for improvement.
> 
> Fortunately, skills like these can be learned and improved with practice. There are hundreds of tricks, shortcuts, and simple principles that can make you a better, more dramatic, and more creative game master.
> 
> But you won't find them in the Dungeon Master Guide. This is a reference book for running the AD&D game. We tried to minimize material that doesn't pertain to the immediate conduct of the game. If you are interested in reading more about this aspect of refereeing, we refer you to Dragon® Magazine, published monthly by TSR, Inc. Dragon Magazine is devoted to role-playing in general and the AD&D game in particular. For more than 16 years, Dragon Magazine has published articles on every facet of role-playing. It is invaluable for DMs and players.






			
				DMG2e said:
			
		

> In reality, few, if any, characters are truly hopeless. Certainly, ability scores have an effect on the game, but they are not the overwhelming factor in a character's success or failure. Far more important is the cleverness and ingenuity the player brings to the character.
> 
> When a player bemoans his bad luck and "hopeless" character, he may just be upset because the character is not exactly what he wanted. Some players write off any character who has only one above-average ability score. Some complain if a new character does not qualify for a favorite class or race. Others complain if even one ability score is below average. Some players become stuck in super-character mode. Some want a character with no penalties. Some always want to play a particular character class and feel cheated if their scores won't allow it.






			
				dmg2e said:
			
		

> In addition to unlimited class choice, humans can attain any level in any class. Once again, this is a human special ability, something no other race has. In the AD&D game, humans are more motivated by ambition and the desire for power than the demihuman races are. Thus, humans advance further and more quickly.
> 
> Demihumans can attain significant levels in certain classes, but they do not have the same unlimited access. Some players may argue that the greater age of various non-humans automatically means they will attain greater levels. That can present problems.
> 
> Demihuman characters are limited in how high a level they can achieve both to preserve internal consistency (humans are more flexible than non-humans) and to enforce game balance. A DM, however, can change or eliminate these limits as he sees fit. As with class restrictions, the consequences must be examined in detail.




Those are just a few snippits. No wonder no one used the RAW of 2e, it was bland, boring, insulted your intelligence, and illogical all at the same time...


----------



## malladin

FireLance said:
			
		

> You know what I say to that:
> 
> *It's Still D&D To Me*
> (with apologies to Billy Joel)
> 
> What's the matter with the sword I'm swinging?
> Can't you tell that it's too mundane?
> Maybe I should buy some leather armor.
> How much gold don't you have anyway?
> Where have you been hidin' out lately, honey?
> You can't fight monsters 'til you spend a lot of money.
> Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new game
> Funny, but it's still D&D to me.
> 
> What's the matter with the horse I'm riding?
> Can't you tell that it's out of style?
> Should I try to raise a baby griffon?
> Yes you can, but it'll take a while.
> Nowadays you can't be too sentimental,
> Your best bet's a half-dragon half-elemental.
> Pokemount, riding dog, half-celestial dire frog,
> It's still D&D to me.
> 
> Oh, it doesn't matter what they say in the papers,
> 'Cause it's always been the same old scene.
> There's a new game in town but you can't get the sound
> From a story in a magazine
> Aimed at your average teen.
> 
> How about a suite of stat boosting items
> And a keen holy flaming burst lance?
> You could be a really great hero baby,
> If you just give it half a chance.
> Don't waste your money on a rod of negation,
> You get more mileage from a ring of protection.
> Heavy shield, animated, heavy fort, mithril plate,
> It's still D&D to me.
> 
> What's the matter with the class I'm playing?
> Don't you know that it got the shaft?
> Should I try to play a cleric/wizard?
> If you do then you must be daft.
> Don't you know about the new options honey?
> You get to stack your saves and your base attack bonii.
> It's the next phase, new wave, balanced play, anyways
> It's still D&D to me.
> Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new game
> Funny, but it's still D&D to me.​


----------



## WizarDru

Henry said:
			
		

> True - it exists in a pale shadow known as PDF purchasing.




Very true.  I do impulse buy PDFs...but my $ threshold is considerably lower, I think.



			
				Henry said:
			
		

> Admittedly, in 1E we didn't know that such customizing existed, and often just stayed strictly within the rules. Hopefully, the newer crowds of players will realize this, and open their doors later to more than just cherry-picking from books just as we did.




We glanced at and often browsed stuff like Arms Law and Claw Law and so forth...but we took a pass on so much of the AD&D rules as it was, we didn't really need MORE of them.  But I think just about everybody I knew DM'ed with their own customizations.

I think part of the issue is that WotC has produced SO MUCH STUFF and there are only niches left to cover.  I mean, under AD&D you didn't have nearly so much material from TSR for alternate game-styles and variances as you do under 3.X.  And if I'm going to choose just one supplement for an alternate magic system, I'm equally likely to pick up one of the four or so that WotC made, as opposed to Melvin's Magic Company.

On the other hand, if not for those side producers, I would have missed stuff like Magical Medieval Europe or the DCC line...so it all balances.


----------



## Ghendar

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> It's simple, really.  *The game now has to appeal to people who are all about NOW NOW NOW GIMME GIMME POWER LEVELS* and I'm entirely sure that if someone had figured out a way to throw in sparkly computer graphics that lit up your character sheet every time you level dinged, they'd have thrown it in.
> 
> *The game is no longer about building characters over time.*  Hell, Dancey and his lot flat out said that "D&D 3 is engineered to be more fun".  Think about that.  Engineered.  To be.  More fun.  Lunacy!  Utter lunacy!  The whole f---ed up CR system?!  The bang-zoom XP chart?  All created because a bunch of marketroids listened to a tiny segment of gamers and decided that after _n_ sessions over _n_ weeks that everyone should be _x_ level because that was a more sound _ENGINEERING_ decision.  Don't believe me?  *Go look up what Sean Reynolds did about Drow weapons disintigrating in sunlight.  It was nerfed because that's not FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIR.  Just like the rust monster.  Pfft.  Well somebody CALL THE WAAAAAAAMBULANCE life in the dungeon is a little DIFFICULT.*




Well, I agree with all that bolded stuff anyway.  

Your mileage may vary. <shrug>


----------



## Lonely Tylenol

Crothian said:
			
		

> I never had to return to the old method.  The CR numbers are still there.  If I have 6 players of fifth level I know that usually a CR 6 monster will work well.  DMing is hard work and even for a 4 person party the game will not always work perfectly.  No RPG does becasue none of them cover everything the players and DM want to do and how they act.



I just use the average party level based on the assumptions of a 4-member party.  6 characters of 5th level are the equivalent of 4 characters at 7th.  

(6*5)/4=7.5 (round down)

It's not perfect, since one high-level character is better than a few low-level characters, but it's ballpark correct within a CR rating.  And within 1 CR is probably less than the margin of error for tactics, party composition, and lucky/unlucky rolls.


----------



## Lonely Tylenol

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> It is very nearly possible to run a PHB-only campaign in 3e.  There are a few gaps, but mostly things that experienced DMs could wing.
> 
> That is a pretty significant change.  I think it is reasonable to argue that is a positive change, although I can also understand that some may not see it as a practical advantage.



I pretty much just use the DMG for treasure stats and pre-generated NPC templates.  If I were willing to do the work, I could probably dispense with the MM, although I don't see any reason to do so.  Theoretically, I could play with just the first half of the PHB, dispense with spells, and run a gritty campaign.  It would be totally doable, and no systems would get broken.  But I don't really see why I would want to do so except to prove hysterical internet people wrong.  And I don't care about doing that.  D&D is robust, with or without all its rules, thanks in part to the unified mechanic.  I just happen to like all the bells and whistles.


----------



## Lonely Tylenol

mhacdebhandia said:
			
		

> Man, I hate the sentiment that "roleplaying" = "wish fulfilment".



Would you rather spend your afternoon frustrating your wishes?


----------



## Lonely Tylenol

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> It is still possible to stat an NPC up in minutes.



Go visit the wiki in my sig.  Take an NPC, alter slightly until perfect for your scene.  Easy as pie, thanks to teh intarwebs.


----------



## Zaruthustran

mhacdebhandia said:
			
		

> Man, I hate the sentiment that "roleplaying" = "wish fulfilment".




Huh? What else could it possibly be? 

I listened to Tim Schafer talk at the GDC about game and character design, which is where I first heard the claim "all games are wish fulfillment." I think to be clear, all *roleplaying* games are wish fulfillment. Sudoko, crossword puzzles, and most board games are mental exercises.

But that game where you get to be a big barbarian, crush your enemies, drive them before you, and hear the lamentations of their women? Totally wish fulfillment.

There's a reason D&D is called a FANTASY role playing game. Playing it allows the players to enact their fantasies. The whole point of the game is to make your character more and more powerful, able to take on bigger and bigger challenges, collect ever more astounding treasures, accomplish increasingly impactful deeds. 

Wish fulfillment.

-z


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Zaruthustran said:
			
		

> But that game where you get to be a big barbarian, crush your enemies, drive them before you, and hear the lamentations of their women? Totally wish fulfillment.




Gah!  I play RPGs to get _away_ from my day job.


----------



## Crothian

Zaruthustran said:
			
		

> Huh? What else could it possibly be?




Just a game.  I have no desire to actually be a paladin, but I'll play on because it can be fun.


----------



## I'm A Banana

I seem to be hearing some of the usual "3e coddles players" talk, which seems to me to be in the same vein as "I can't believe kids these days need BOOTS! In my day, we walked through four-foot snows in SANDALS and were glad for wet socks!"

Something changes to make the pain of life (or the game) less evident or does away with them all together, and people claim that it makes people weak and immoral and all sorts of things...it's an argument at least as old as the Amish, and likely as old as Atl-Atls (Pheh, you kids use THROWERS for  your spears?! Back in my day, we threw with our hands! And sometimes we'd get right up in the woolly mammoth's face and stab 'em, ya young pansies!). And the counter-argument always seems to be more persuasive to me, being basically "The less pain, suffering, coping, and toughness one has to deal with in life, the better the quality of that life."

With regards to D&D specifically, this is even MORE true, since it is an elective activity that is ostensibly for enjoyment...making one XP chart instead of 13 means that there is less pain, suffering, coping, and toughness to deal with in the game, and thus the game is of better quality. If I have to basically re-make the game in my own image (something I see a lot of elder-editionists holding up with understandable pride), it's a very poor game to begin with. Fun? Sure, but watching Univision when I can't understand Spanish is fun, too. And requires significantly less investment of time and effort.

And, yes, investing time and effort into something to make it fun is a waste of time when that thing purports to provide you with fun. It's like being given a comb when you asked for a toy. Sure, you can make it INTO a toy, but obviously it's much worse than, say, an action figure for that purpose. A comb makes a low-quality toy, and the older editions of D&D make a pretty low-quality game, it seems, since they had to be adjusted, ignored, and kit-bashed into functionality. It wasn't a game, it was inspiration for you to make up your own game and call it D&D.

And then I'm seeing that the "soul of D&D" seems to be very general and pervasive...it's even been referenced as expanding to fill all of role-playing in some posts, but even when more codified, the soul doesn't seem to lie in the mechanics or the specifics of the system or edition. I could be playing GURPS Fantasy and just call it D&D and I'd be meeting many of these definitions. 

So what makes 3e any less "D&D" then running my own kit-bashed homebrew AD&D campaign without level limits? Is it merely a matter of degrees, a slippery slope?


----------



## MoogleEmpMog

Zaruthustran said:
			
		

> There's a reason D&D is called a FANTASY role playing game. Playing it allows the players to enact their fantasies. The whole point of the game is to make your character more and more powerful, able to take on bigger and bigger challenges, collect ever more astounding treasures, accomplish increasingly impactful deeds.




Erm... I'd say most Science Fiction, Pulp, Space Opera and Modern Action roleplaying games offer the same thing, and they're never called FANTASY roleplaying games.  The fantasy in this case refers to the genre, not to wish fulfilment.

Even if your premise is right, your terminology... isn't.


----------



## Zaruthustran

MoogleEmpMog said:
			
		

> Erm... I'd say most Science Fiction, Pulp, Space Opera and Modern Action roleplaying games offer the same thing, and they're never called FANTASY roleplaying games.  The fantasy in this case refers to the genre, not to wish fulfilment.
> 
> Even if your premise is right, your terminology... isn't.




LOL, and totally right.  I retract the argument.

I stand by the claim that RPGs (whether fantasy or otherwise) are played because the player says to him or herself, "wouldn't it be cool to be X". Where X = a spaceman, a vampire, Indiana Jones, a paladin, an investigator, a street samurai, etc. etc.

For those more mechanically minded / powergamers (to be clear: a term that, to me, carries no negative connotation), replace X with: able to do over 1,000 damage per round, able to be more effective than any other player's character, able to do anything else one sees posted as challenges on character optimization boards.

Still wish fulfillment and, IMHO, the soul of D&D. 

-z


----------



## MoogleEmpMog

Zaruthustran said:
			
		

> LOL, and totally right.  I retract the argument.
> 
> I stand by the claim that RPGs (whether fantasy or otherwise) are played because the player says to him or herself, "wouldn't it be cool to be X". Where X = a spaceman, a vampire, Indiana Jones, a paladin, an investigator, a street samurai, etc. etc.
> 
> For those more mechanically minded / powergamers (to be clear: a term that, to me, carries no negative connotation), replace X with: able to do over 1,000 damage per round, able to be more effective than any other player's character, able to do anything else one sees posted as challenges on character optimization boards.
> 
> Still wish fulfillment and, IMHO, the soul of D&D.




Quite possibly true.  Certainly this is the main reason I've seen for playing "traditional" RPGs.  Some of the more off-the-wall types, perhaps not so much.

For my part, I'm usually more interested in genre emulation, often as specific as a single other media (wouldn't it be cool to have a new Conan story - that didn't suck - or a side story in the world of FF6?).  RPGs for me are probably closer to interactive fanfic than wish fulfillment.


----------



## Glyfair

Kormydigar said:
			
		

> If the goal was to increase the "fun" time then why did WOTC design a system that makes statting up NPC's such a labor intensive chore..




I've said this before, but I think it's a matter of two conflicting guidelings about the "right way" of game design that work against each other.  

1)  The more options and customability for player characters, the better.

2)  PCs and NPCs should play by the same rules.

I happen to agree with #1, but I'm not 100% on board with #2.  However, there is a large, vocal group of roleplayers that consider it to be paramount.

So, because you are giving players all these options for character design, you have to give them to NPCs.  That makes NPC design such a headache.

In my option, rule #2 should be tossed.  PC character design should be an _option_ for NPCs, but there should be a faster design method for quick fast minimalistic NPCs.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Glyfair said:
			
		

> In my option, rule #2 should be tossed.  PC character design should be an _option_ for NPCs, but there should be a faster design method for quick fast minimalistic NPCs.




I would agree, in spades.

I consider it highly desirable that design rules for NPCs can sensibly follow those for PCs closely.  I do not like that every single Drow Wizard/Fighter I meet happen to be characters that the DM would never even theorectically let me play regardless of the level of play, etc.  I do not see any compelling reason to _require_ all NPCs follow such rules.

I am a big supporter of the idea that DMs should "cheat, fair and square".  What I mean is that DMs should not be the least bit ashamed or uncomfortable about using extreme shortcuts, as long as they are making a good faith effort that the shortcut is fair to the PCs _on average_ even if it may not quite be fair for this particular occasion.

Suppose I need a CR 9 fighter.  I have a CR 7 Fighter on hand.  What do I do?  Add 20 HPs, +2 to hit, +2 to damage, +2 AC, +2 to saves, +2 to all skills.  Give him two or three potions.  Boring?  Yes.  But this is close enough.

We can tweak this rule of thumb up and down (it is probably a tad on the weak side), but it is really good enough 90% of the time.  Most NPCs just do not live long enough for subtle hues in character generation to be noticed by the players.

We already have the differentiation between CR and ECL/LA, so it is not as if we require some a perfect match between PC and NPC rules.


----------



## Lanefan

Destil said:
			
		

> No. The older editions didn't give you any advice at all. This is a point I see people constantly making about 3E and it's just wrong, the same thing with the idea of a standard GP wealth valve.
> 
> Old Editions of the game gave you almost nothing. You'd know that the adventure was for however many players of whatever level. That's it. No information on class, no information on how many magical items they should have.



Which forced the DM to use his-her own observations as to what the party could handle, and go with that.  To me, that's a Good Thing.



> The ‘problem’ only arises when there's an expectation by the players that there will be so much treasure, that they will face encounters designed for the classic 4, that they will gain levels so fast... These are all play style decisions. These are issues within a gaming group, flaws in the system. I'll be the first to amid that issues with player expectation are worse by these assumptions, but all the info given on how the system works in the DMG makes it very easy to change these to suit your group.



And other than the level-gain points, none of that was even thought of in earlier editions, so nobody worried overmuch about it.  But now it's in the books, it de facto becomes a standard; players come to expect it (as you mention) and any DM who wants to change it is immediately on the defensive.

Lanefan


----------



## Aus_Snow

Zaruthustran said:
			
		

> Huh? What else could it possibly be?



Different things to different people. 



> There's a reason D&D is called a FANTASY role playing game.



Yes. Yes, there is: it's a fantasy roleplaying game. 



> Playing it allows the players to enact their fantasies. The whole point of the game is to make your character more and more powerful, able to take on bigger and bigger challenges, collect ever more astounding treasures, accomplish increasingly impactful deeds.



For some. Perhaps many.



> Wish fulfillment.



Or just plain ol' fun. Or something else, for others.


It seems some people continue to confuse the fantasy genre with the acting out of fantasies. They are not (necessarily) even related.

Fantasy settings are defined by being strange, otherworldly, filled with the supernatural and/or highly unusual, etc. etc.

Acting out one's fantasies - in a roleplaying kind of way - is not limited to the fantasy genre, any more than roleplaying in any kind of fantasy setting is limited to acting out one's fantasies.

I think that covers it pretty well.


----------



## Lanefan

The game may well be, in essence, wish fulfillment...but:

The question then becomes one of how relatively easy or not fulfilling that wish is going to be.  3e seems to make it generally easier than 1e, at least from what I've seen, and that may be at the root of many an argument both here and elsewhere...

Lanefan


----------



## Thurbane

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Dear lord man! You're forming oppinions about how people play based on what you read on the _internet_? The internet is frought with complainers, trolls, and angry angry people. Is someone more likely to make a post about a great gaming experience or a horrible gaming experience? The latter by a long shot. If you go by what you read on the internet, you get a very skewed version of reality.
> 
> The internet is a great place to get ideas for your own game, to debate interesting topics, and to joke around, but there are limits to the information provided on it. People are just more likely to rant than rave, and I don't think that behavior is limited to the internet either.



Unfortunately the internet is my only yardstick, as I don't have any "realtime" contact with other gaming groups. I agree though that it is not an ideal window into a "typical" gaming group.

Having said that, I still can't help but feel the "legalese" tone of the rules and the prevailing attitude that these rules must be observed to the letter of the law makes (some) players inherently distrust their DMs. Heave forbid if a DM were to fudge a roll in the interest of keeping a story flowing ("Railroading!!!") or to ignore a rule that would detract from a session ("RAW!!!"). I agree that the DM shouldnt be some haughty tyrant who dishes out illogcial rulings at will, but at the end of the day he is the guy putting the time and effort into creating a running a setting for the players to interract with. IMHO, this should earn him (at the very least) some respect from the players, and the right to make a final ruling, even if it steps outside the RAW on occasion.


----------



## Thurbane

Remathilis said:
			
		

> Those are just a few snippits. No wonder no one used the RAW of 2e, it was bland, boring, insulted your intelligence, and illogical all at the same time...



You don't work at Fox News do you?  Fair and balanced!


----------



## Remathilis

Thurbane said:
			
		

> You don't work at Fox News do you?  Fair and balanced!




Work for them? I think the quote could be used to explain THEM as well...


----------



## Rhuvein

Psion said:
			
		

> There is no "soul of D&D". There is only how well or how poorly the owner of the game meets the needs of the audience. As the audience varies, so does opinion on this. "Soul of D&D" is just a rhetoric to try to sell your particular veiw as somehow more correct that anyone else's.




Ridiculous!

There certainly is a "soul" of this game. And I won't even mention which version has it. Those of us that feel it, know!


----------



## I'm A Banana

> IMHO, this should earn him (at the very least) some respect from the players, and the right to make a final ruling, even if it steps outside the RAW on occasion.




With fairness, one of the most rewarding choices of 3e design, to me, has been the eradication of the myth of the infalliable DM. Before, the rules weren't very good, so the DM's rules were often better by a significant margin. Now, the rules are very good, so the DM's rules are often at least slightly worse.

Not always, and there are plenty of ways a good DM can change the rules for the good of the game, but 3e has some built-in "Idiot DM Switches" that can be set off. The DM is NOT always good, or even competent, and a poor DM (or even one with a simple soapbox or a bad understanding of playing a game) can ruin the game not just for themselves, but for 3-6 other people, too. 

3e's desire to provide a baseline, to make the rules clear and sensible, and to give you no great reason to mistrust the rules in the books goes a long way toward making DMing not the "suffering for pleasure" that it is often depicted as. And I think that's a VERY good goal. No one should be forced to labor under a burden to enjoy a night of gaming, and the better the designers do their job, the less the DM will have to adjust and change...not that he can't, just that he doesn't have to unless he wants to.

This does empower players to see the flaws in a DM's plan as well, sometimes in ways a DM cannot see. Players should have vocal imput on the game they want to play in -- it's not just the DM's playground, it's the whole group's.


----------



## Thurbane

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> This does empower players to see the flaws in a DM's plan as well, sometimes in ways a DM cannot see. Players should have vocal imput on the game they want to play in -- it's not just the DM's playground, it's the whole group's.



Input? Yes.

Veto rights? No.

When I DM, if I have missed something and my players bring it to my attention, I will do a quick mental reasessment - if it doesn't disrupt the flow of the game greatly, I will generally concede the players point. If, however, I wish to stand by my earlier ruling, even if it isn't RAW, I would expect my players to accept it with good grace. I'm lucky enough that my group does do this. In turn, I extend the same courtesy as a player when someone else is DMing.

This is something that has always occurred regardless of editions; but as I have stated many times now, I believe the "pseudo-legal document" phrasing of the current rules has made it easier for "rules lawyers" to raise an objection, and then refuse to back down using the almighty RAW as their bulwark. The "airtight" nature of the rules may well mean less overall disagreements, but they seem to approach the vehement nature of a courthouse brawl between opposing lawyers when they do occur.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Input? Yes.
> 
> Veto rights? No.
> 
> When I DM, if I have missed something and my players bring it to my attention, I will do a quick mental reasessment - if it doesn't disrupt the flow of the game greatly, I will generally concede the players point. If, however, I wish to stand by my earlier ruling, even if it isn't RAW, I would expect my players to accept it with good grace. I'm lucky enough that my group does do this. In turn, I extend the same courtesy as a player when someone else is DMing.




Perhaps I should offer a maxim. The players must accept the DM's ruling only so long as that ruling clearly makes the game more enjoyable for that group.

Now, in previous editions, the RAW was, as far as I can see, insufficient to make the game enjoyable for most groups, so the DM was forced to change the game frequently to make something that worked. The DM had a right, a responsibility, to make many judgements based on his whims and feelings...he had to, the rules themselves were poorly equipped to deal with the actual game.

In this edition, the RAW is quite sufficient and well-designed, so the DM does not need to change the game at all. In order to change the game now, he must offer an alternative that is well-thought-out, that has a clear purpose, and that won't upset a system that already works quite well as written. Players, educated by the manuals, are now equipped to see why, for instance, "balance between the classes and races" is a good thing. To upset that balance requires a justification. The DM has no right or responsibility to judge based on whims and feelings. Indeed, to do so now is to ignore all the work that had already been done to avoid having to do that.

When presented with a functional game (which is fairly new in this edition) the DM's style must change -- he's not kitbashing his homebrew, he's no longer making toys out of combs, he's taking a fully functioning GI Joe and giving him a LEGO arm.


----------



## ThirdWizard

Thurbane said:
			
		

> This is something that has always occurred regardless of editions; but as I have stated many times now, I believe the "pseudo-legal document" phrasing of the current rules has made it easier for "rules lawyers" to raise an objection, and then refuse to back down using the almighty RAW as their bulwark.




I will go on record as saying that I have little tolerance for experienced DMs who refuse to learn the rules or who modify the rules in game inconsistantly. I expect a certain competance from the people I play with. If I find myself having to correct a DM over and over, I will simply not return to game with them. I have been like this since I started playing. I don't have to worry about that, though, because the people I play with actually care about playing by the rules.

Now, I'm not saying you fit into the categories I have described. And, I have no objection to playing fast and loose with, say, Cinematic Unisystem, but if you're going to play fast and loose, then why not play something like Buffy where that's actually encouraged by the game system? Why choose such a rules heavy system then disregard the heaviness when it suits you? This I do not understand.

I'm the guy who, in 2e memorized everything. Did you know that in 2e a dual weilder could subtract his dexterity from his two weapon fighting penalty? Once I made a PC two weapon fighter and the DM nearly had an anurism as I had to walk him through the rules for dual wielding. He thought it was rules-lawyering, and I was so annoyed by his lack of knowing the actual rules of the game that I nearly didn't play in the game. One man's rules lawyering is another man's day to day activity.


----------



## Thurbane

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> I will go on record as saying that I have little tolerance for experienced DMs who refuse to learn the rules or who modify the rules in game inconsistantly. I expect a certain competance from the people I play with. If I find myself having to correct a DM over and over, I will simply not return to game with them. I have been like this since I started playing. I don't have to worry about that, though, because the people I play with actually care about playing by the rules.
> 
> Now, I'm not saying you fit into the categories I have described. And, I have no objection to playing fast and loose with, say, Cinematic Unisystem, but if you're going to play fast and loose, then why not play something like Buffy where that's actually encouraged by the game system? Why choose such a rules heavy system then disregard the heaviness when it suits you? This I do not understand.
> 
> I'm the guy who, in 2e memorized everything. Did you know that in 2e a dual weilder could subtract his dexterity from his two weapon fighting penalty? Once I made a PC two weapon fighter and the DM nearly had an anurism as I had to walk him through the rules for dual wielding. He thought it was rules-lawyering, and I was so annoyed by his lack of knowing the actual rules of the game that I nearly didn't play in the game. One man's rules lawyering is another man's day to day activity.



Duly noted - in 1E and 2E I was exactly like you. The others in my group would never look up a book to check a rule, they'd just ask me instead.   

I think perhaps we are talking about slightly different occurences though. I'm not necessarily talking about the DM making a major goof on the rules. I'm talking about the DM being free to step sideways of the RAW if it means the adventure, session or cmapaign might run better from his point of view.

To give a bit of an example, the RAW might state that spell X automatically overcomes spell Y. A player remebers this fact and calls the DMs attention to it a few rounds after it has happened. The DM weighs it up, and considers that trying to backtrack the combat 3 rounds and re-do all the action since then is simply too disruptive to make doing so worthwhile. He informs the player that in this instance, spell X failed to overcome spell Y. This can go one of two ways: A.) the player accepts the DMs ruling and the game continues or B.) the player gets indignant that the DM is "cheating" by negelcting the RAW. Speaking both as a DM and a player, I'd rather see it go down path A.

Another example - in my game, I don't allow the Withdraw action as it is written (I have posted about this several times), and I also make firing into melee more risky than just a -4 penalty. In this case I am fully aware of the RAW, I just happen to disagree with them. I let my players know about my rule changes up front, and they are free to discuss it with me. If they unanimously thought they were horrible ideas, I would revert to the RAW. As it happens, my players all (more or less) agree with my rule changes. Same when someone else DMs - I abide by their house rules, and let them have final ruling on disputes.

I am not promoting the ideal of a DM who bends and changes the rules at his whim to screw the players over. I'm talking about not letting the RAW get in the way of the flow of a session. I'd much rather risk putting someones nose out of joint until we can discuss it out of session than lose half of our session time bickering points of RAW back and forth. We play once a week for 2 to 5 hours, and every second of that time is precious to us.

I find it works well for my group. *shrugs* Maybe not for others, who can say...


----------



## Thurbane

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Perhaps I should offer a maxim. The players must accept the DM's ruling only so long as that ruling clearly makes the game more enjoyable for that group.
> 
> Now, in previous editions, the RAW was, as far as I can see, insufficient to make the game enjoyable for most groups, so the DM was forced to change the game frequently to make something that worked. The DM had a right, a responsibility, to make many judgements based on his whims and feelings...he had to, the rules themselves were poorly equipped to deal with the actual game.
> 
> In this edition, the RAW is quite sufficient and well-designed, so the DM does not need to change the game at all. In order to change the game now, he must offer an alternative that is well-thought-out, that has a clear purpose, and that won't upset a system that already works quite well as written. Players, educated by the manuals, are now equipped to see why, for instance, "balance between the classes and races" is a good thing. To upset that balance requires a justification. The DM has no right or responsibility to judge based on whims and feelings. Indeed, to do so now is to ignore all the work that had already been done to avoid having to do that.
> 
> When presented with a functional game (which is fairly new in this edition) the DM's style must change -- he's not kitbashing his homebrew, he's no longer making toys out of combs, he's taking a fully functioning GI Joe and giving him a LEGO arm.



I agree with some of your general points (see my above post), but I *strongly* disagree that the RAW from ealier editions, especially 2E, were not enough to be enjoyable. May I ask if you've actually played any 1E or 2E AD&D? I use just about as many house rules and run into more-or-less the same number of rules conundrums in 3.5 as I did in 2E.

I also *strongly* disagree that the DM must accept the RAW simply because (in your opinion) they are so well written and designed. This hearkens back to an earlier point of mine: some of the newer generation of players (maybe not yourself specifically) seem to view DMs as little more than an inanimate "CPU" to allow them to interract with the rulebooks.

If you've never played in a game where the DM tweaks the rules and makes some changes, I genuinely feel sorry for you. Yes, you've been playing FDA approved D&D flavor gaming, but have missed a huge part of what makes RPGs great, IMHO...


----------



## thedungeondelver

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Perhaps I should offer a maxim. The players must accept the DM's ruling only so long as that ruling clearly makes the game more enjoyable for that group.
> 
> Now, in previous editions, the RAW was, as far as I can see, insufficient to make the game enjoyable for most groups,





Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

You're doing it again.

Intellectual dishonesty.


----------



## ThirdWizard

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I am not promoting the ideal of a DM who bends and changes the rules at his whim to screw the players over.




I think I can agree with what you say. House Rules are great so long as they remain consistant and the Players are made aware of them before the game (so long as they directly relate to what the PCs would know about the world). I would just like to point out on this part that I would not promote bending or changing the rules on a whim to aid the players either!

I should also probably state that I really dislike rule changes that try to make things more "realistic" for follow "common sense." I have to quotation them because I rarely find them to be the case.


----------



## thedungeondelver

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> With fairness, one of the most rewarding choices of 3e design, to me, has been the eradication of the myth of the infalliable DM. Before, the rules weren't very good, so the DM's rules were often better by a significant margin. Now, the rules are very good, so the DM's rules are often at least slightly worse.
> 
> Not always, and there are plenty of ways a good DM can change the rules for the good of the game, but 3e has some built-in "Idiot DM Switches" that can be set off. The DM is NOT always good, or even competent, and a poor DM (or even one with a simple soapbox or a bad understanding of playing a game) can ruin the game not just for themselves, but for 3-6 other people, too.
> 
> 3e's desire to provide a baseline, to make the rules clear and sensible, and to give you no great reason to mistrust the rules in the books goes a long way toward making DMing not the "suffering for pleasure" that it is often depicted as. And I think that's a VERY good goal. No one should be forced to labor under a burden to enjoy a night of gaming, and the better the designers do their job, the less the DM will have to adjust and change...not that he can't, just that he doesn't have to unless he wants to.
> 
> This does empower players to see the flaws in a DM's plan as well, sometimes in ways a DM cannot see. Players should have vocal imput on the game they want to play in -- it's not just the DM's playground, it's the whole group's.




QFT: the above is why we adherents to older versions of the rules look at 3.5 and say "That ain't D&D".  

The game isn't about competing any more, it's about making sure nobody's feelings get hurt.

Tell me, if you had the opportunity to play chess with a master - or even just a ranked player - would you want one who always played in a subpar fashion?  Or let you occasionally dictate moves, to wit "No no, don't move your queen there.  You can put me in check-mate in eight moves if you do that.  In fact, put your queen over here where I can grab it on my move with my bishop.  Yeah.  That's better."

I thoroughly expect you to come back with "Well I don't play chess" or "Well a ranked player would do this...", but, humor me.

D&D used to be about winning against the odds.  Now it's about powerleveling, twinking, and making sure that nobody and nothing - including the DM - gets in the way.  The rules are designed to that end.  In my AD&D game, I put my party up against a red dragon.  Hell, I had no idea if they'd win.  Maybe they'd lose.  Maybe - just _maybe_ - they'd lose a lot of the party and have to retreat, have to come up with a way around the critter.

In YOUR D&D, that's not _fair_.  A ... oh lord COLLOSAL WARFORGED DIRE ABYSSAL RED DRAGON ... is CR so-and-so, and in your world the players know that and can throw a little fit - out of game - when it shows up because hey _they have the right to, right?_ Because now I'm not playing by the rules (using the CR system).

Fie on your D&D.  Your D&D isn't fun for anybody.  It's a set of manacles slapped on the creative, and training wheels that will NEVER EVER COME OFF for the noncreative, so they'll never learn how to be good DMs.

This is the last thing I'm going to say on the subject because it's become painfully clear that you guys Just Don't Get It(TM), and it's a quote from Mr. Gygax:



> Well, if you don’t do that then younger Dungeon Masters will start out assisting the players, and then the game quickly becomes a bore…the best way, which I might have said better, is that you must at all times be disinterested in the players [winning].  When you’re playing various roles, you’re either going to be adversarial, neutral, or helpful when dealing with the players in whatever you’re representing.  Nature, is of course quite disinterested in whether or not we live or die.  And there’s the underlying feel that there should always be a rivalry between the game master and the players – he trying to fox them, and vice-versa, because that makes the game a lot more fun.  Not an unfriendly rivalry as it were.  A good game master should feel worse if a great character dies, because a game master gains a deal of greatness by association with good players!




Quote _that_ for truth.


----------



## FireLance

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I agree with some of your general points (see my above post), but I *strongly* disagree that the RAW from ealier editions, especially 2E, were not enough to be enjoyable. May I ask if you've actually played any 1E or 2E AD&D? I use just about as many house rules and run into more-or-less the same number of rules conundrums in 3.5 as I did in 2E.



I've played BD&D, 1E (including Unearthed Arcana) and 2E (including Skills and Powers and Spells and Magic). There have been things that bothered me about the rules back then (racial class restrictions and demihuman level limits were probably the biggest two), but I accepted them as quirks of the system. 3.xE removed many of the problems I had with previous editions. It wasn't that previous editions were bad - I had fun playing them or I wouldn't still be here. It's just that I find the 3.5e ruleset to be much better.



> I also *strongly* disagree that the DM must accept the RAW simply because (in your opinion) they are so well written and designed. This hearkens back to an earlier point of mine: some of the newer generation of players (maybe not yourself specifically) seem to view DMs as little more than an inanimate "CPU" to allow them to interract with the rulebooks.



Ah, but the fact that the RAW are so well written and designed (in my opinion, anyway) sets a high bar for DMs who want to introduce houserules. As a player, I'd like to know (preferably in advance) what are a DM's houserules and why he wants to introduce them. I would then be able to make an assessment (using my own knowledge of the rules) whether the DM's houserule is likely to improve my gaming experience. From personal experience, the last attempt to introduce major houserules into my gaming group (related to making magic less reliable) resulted in that person's exit from the group because our play styles simply did not match (nobody else really wanted to play in a post-apocalyptic low wealth unreliable magic campaign).



> If you've never played in a game where the DM tweaks the rules and makes some changes, I genuinely feel sorry for you. Yes, you've been playing FDA approved D&D flavor gaming, but have missed a huge part of what makes RPGs great, IMHO...



It's probably fashionable on these boards to consider homebrewed games and houseruled systems to be somehow superior to WotC's RAW, and that DMs who reserve the right to change the rules in their game are somehow better than DMs who decide to run the game according to the RAW. (Weren't we discussing this earlier here?)

Fundamentally, I see the difference between RAW and houseruled games as the difference between food in a restaurant* and home-cooked food. It is possible to appreciate both. If your DM is good, then his houserules could even suit your group's playstyle better than anything that WotC can come up with. However, some DMs may be better off just using the RAW. 

* I'm sure someone is bound to come along and compare WotC to a greasy fast-food joint. :\ Whatever.


----------



## FireLance

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> QFT: the above is why we adherents to older versions of the rules look at 3.5 and say "That ain't D&D".
> 
> The game isn't about competing any more, it's about making sure nobody's feelings get hurt.



Actually, I'd say that the game isn't about competing any more, it's about making sure that everyone has fun. Now, if your group enjoys a competitive game, that's fine. You can do that in 3.5e just as you could have done it in previous editions. I just think that it's sad that a more co-operative style of gaming gets labelled as "making sure nobody's feelings get hurt".



> D&D used to be about winning against the odds.  Now it's about powerleveling, twinking, and making sure that nobody and nothing - including the DM - gets in the way.  The rules are designed to that end.  In my AD&D game, I put my party up against a red dragon.  Hell, I had no idea if they'd win.  Maybe they'd lose.  Maybe - just _maybe_ - they'd lose a lot of the party and have to retreat, have to come up with a way around the critter.



You know, I posted this previously in another thread. Looks like a good time to bring it up again.

The underlying philosophy of previous versions of D&D appears to be "Let's see what happens". Players were routinely challenged with the unknown, e.g. new monsters with weird abilities, traps that trigger in response to seemingly innocuous actions, oddball effects that defy the known rules, etc. This encouraged caution on the part of the players. Neither the DMs nor the players had any pre-conceived ideas of how an encounter should go. This meant that players could overcome encounters through extreme luck, creativity, or fast-talking the DM into agreeing that whatever crazy scheme they came up with will work (this is often confused with creativity). 

On the other hand, the underlying philosophy of 3e seems to be "This is what should happen." Players are given more avenues in the rules to acquire information - Knowledge checks to identify monsters and their abilities, Search checks to find traps, Spellcraft checks to learn about magical effects, etc. DMs, if not players, have a better idea of what individual encounters are supposed to do, whether the players have a good, fair or almost no reasonable chance of defeating it in a straight fight, and how the players are expected to overcome it (if at all). Players are expected to overcome challenges with their characters' abilities instead of their own creativity and persuasiveness. The net effect is to foster an attitude of increased confidence (or recklessness, YMMV) and propensity for action on the part of the players.​


> In YOUR D&D, that's not _fair_.  A ... oh lord COLLOSAL WARFORGED DIRE ABYSSAL RED DRAGON ... is CR so-and-so, and in your world the players know that and can throw a little fit - out of game - when it shows up because hey _they have the right to, right?_ Because now I'm not playing by the rules (using the CR system).



Actually, I think the difference is that in previous editions, DMs would pit the party against a monster that is too tough for them to handle and see what happens. In 3e, the DM is expected to know what's going to happen (the PCs will probably lose) and know how to continue the game from there.



> Fie on your D&D.  Your D&D isn't fun for anybody.  It's a set of manacles slapped on the creative, and training wheels that will NEVER EVER COME OFF for the noncreative, so they'll never learn how to be good DMs.



I don't suppose you'll believe me if I tell you that we are having fun, and we have managed to introduce the game to people who have gone on to become competent DMs, will you?


----------



## Thurbane

FireLance said:
			
		

> I've played BD&D, 1E (including Unearthed Arcana) and 2E (including Skills and Powers and Spells and Magic). There have been things that bothered me about the rules back then (racial class restrictions and demihuman level limits were probably the biggest two), but I accepted them as quirks of the system. 3.xE removed many of the problems I had with previous editions. It wasn't that previous editions were bad - I had fun playing them or I wouldn't still be here. It's just that I find the 3.5e ruleset to be much better.



Totally fair comments, which, in large part, I totally agree with.


> Ah, but the fact that the RAW are so well written and designed (in my opinion, anyway) sets a high bar for DMs who want to introduce houserules. As a player, I'd like to know (preferably in advance) what are a DM's houserules and why he wants to introduce them. I would then be able to make an assessment (using my own knowledge of the rules) whether the DM's houserule is likely to improve my gaming experience. From personal experience, the last attempt to introduce major houserules into my gaming group (related to making magic less reliable) resulted in that person's exit from the group because our play styles simply did not match (nobody else really wanted to play in a post-apocalyptic low wealth unreliable magic campaign).



Also agreed - I would never just srping houserules on my players, they are always clearly forewarned, and the rules made available for discussion. If there is a general consesus they are no good, they are dropped.


> It's probably fashionable on these boards to consider homebrewed games and houseruled systems to be somehow superior to WotC's RAW, and that DMs who reserve the right to change the rules in their game are somehow better than DMs who decide to run the game according to the RAW. (Weren't we discussing this earlier here?)



Yes we were. I don't think that house rules ARE better than RAW, simply that they CAN be better (for my group) than RAW. I would never condemn a DM who follows only RAW and does not houserule; but I still stand by the fact that even if the ruleset is as long as the Encyclopedia Brittanica, a DM will on occasion be called to houserule, and that the ability to step outside the RAW when required is an asset to any DM. There hasn't been, is not, and never will be a "perfect" set of rules that cannot be tweaked to improve their performance (again, for a specific group of gamers), IMHO...


> Fundamentally, I see the difference between RAW and houseruled games as the difference between food in a restaurant* and home-cooked food. It is possible to appreciate both. If your DM is good, then his houserules could even suit your group's playstyle better than anything that WotC can come up with. However, some DMs may be better off just using the RAW.
> 
> * I'm sure someone is bound to come along and compare WotC to a greasy fast-food joint. :\ Whatever.



Now this I totally agree with - my firm belief is that basically no two gaming groups out there enjoy *exactly* the same style of play.


----------



## Thurbane

Just as an aside, I don't feel that CR is the be all and end all of planning encounters, either. When we played 1E/2E, myself or whoever was DMing would rarely throw us up against something we had no chance of beating, or if he did we realised that it was time to flee or surrender.

The fact there was no balance in encounters in earlier editions simply because there was no CR/ECL is a myth IMHO. It merely relied on the DM to put a little more forethought into encounters, and for players to exercise a little more discression when outclassed - they either had to come up with more wily tactics, or be prepared to acknowledge a superior foe and deal accordingly.

Although I wouldn't put it in such harsh terms, this rings very true to me:


			
				thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> It's a set of manacles slapped on the creative, and training wheels that will NEVER EVER COME OFF for the noncreative, so they'll never learn how to be good DMs.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Thurbane said:
			
		

> J
> The fact there was no balance in encounters in earlier editions simply because there was no CR/ECL is a myth IMHO. It merely relied on the DM to put a little more forethought into encounters, and for players to exercise a little more discression when outclassed - they either had to come up with more wily tactics, or be prepared to acknowledge a superior foe and deal accordingly.




It is a myth.  But not in the way you are thinking.

The 3e DMG specifically recommends including a mixture of encounter difficulties, some of which are virtually guaranteed to generate PC deaths if handled in an overly unsubtle manner.  (See the pages 49-50 of the 3.5 DMG.)  The fact the CR is a coarse guide and not a precise value is added noise on the system.  And page 50 talks about some factors that the DM should consider.

It sure looks like you believe in the 3e philosophy 100 per cent.  You just didn't know it.


----------



## MerricB

It becomes clear upon analysis of actual play of 3e and the actual adventures produced for it, that the CR system in no way stops really easy or really hard encounters from occurring. There's even the example of the CR 10(12?) Roper in _The Forge of Fury_, an early 3e adventure for 3rd level PCs as a deliberate example of an encounter the PCs won't be able to defeat. _Sons of Gruumsh_ contains three extremely difficult (APL+4/5) encounters.

(There may be groups that always run EL=APL encounters, but that's not recommended in the rulebooks, and such groups would also exist in AD&D).

Cheers!


----------



## Aus_Snow

MerricB said:
			
		

> It becomes clear upon analysis of actual play of 3e and the actual adventures produced for it, that the CR system in no way stops really easy or really hard encounters from occurring. There's even the example of the CR 10(12?) Roper in _The Forge of Fury_, an early 3e adventure for 3rd level PCs as a deliberate example of an encounter the PCs won't be able to defeat. _Sons of Gruumsh_ contains three extremely difficult (APL+4/5) encounters.
> 
> (There may be groups that always run EL=APL encounters, but that's not recommended in the rulebooks, and such groups would also exist in AD&D).
> 
> Cheers!



Quoted for truth. 

Oh, and yay! I can access the site again.


----------



## Henry

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
> 
> You're doing it again.
> 
> Intellectual dishonesty.




First of all, let's avoid calling each other dishonest, or, in common parlance, "LYING." 

Message from the Admin. 


Now, my personal message:

KM is probably getting that from some of the statements he's seeing here, such as mine and other peoples' about how the game was almost ALWAYS modified by somebody's house rules. If the majority of people who played earlier editions changed the core rules, then it's a valid observation to make. Now, there were LOTS of people who probably played with no alterations whatsoever -- using weapon speeds, using weapon vs. armor type, using the grappling rules, using Staves of the Magi and ROds of Lordly Might, Decks of many things, using the initiative rules from 1E exactly as written, etc. -- but I really haven't seen them, and none of the people so far who have replied have said they did, either. Even if some did, it's still a minority compared to the many who did..


----------



## WizarDru

The longer this discussion goes on, the more I expect Yu-Gi-Oh to show up and start talking about 'the heart of the cards'.  

More and more, I think the 'soul of D&D' is another word for Nostalgia.


----------



## Henry

WizarDru said:
			
		

> More and more, I think the 'soul of D&D' is another word for Nostalgia.




I still have to disagree, because there is a strong delineation between player/DM trust that keeps coming up every time it's discussed. by default, the 3E rules don't seem to trust either.


----------



## diaglo

Henry said:
			
		

> I still have to disagree, because there is a strong delineation between player/DM trust that keeps coming up every time it's discussed. by default, the 3E rules don't seem to trust either.




i read this too in the message boards i visit.

something is different.

diaglo "who used weapon vs armor type in his campaigns" Ooi


----------



## Henry

diaglo said:
			
		

> diaglo "who used weapon vs armor type in his campaigns" Ooi




Darn, I forgot that one in my list! Thanks!


----------



## Numion

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> The game isn't about competing any more, it's about making sure nobody's feelings get hurt.




I guess it depends in the group - some in my group are very competetive. The current edition is much deadlier than earlier editions, and this has created a playing environment which has nothing to do with how _you_ portray the game to be.



> D&D used to be about winning against the odds.  Now it's about powerleveling, twinking, and making sure that nobody and nothing - including the DM - gets in the way.  The rules are designed to that end.  In my AD&D game, I put my party up against a red dragon.  Hell, I had no idea if they'd win.  Maybe they'd lose.  Maybe - just _maybe_ - they'd lose a lot of the party and have to retreat, have to come up with a way around the critter.




I've had much more character deaths in 3E than in previous editions. I also guess that you don't know how the CR system works. The DMG gives guidelines what ELs (or CRs) you should put against what level of groups. It suggests that part of the encounters should be 5 or over the groups average level. That _will_ kill PCs.

How's that fit your theory?  :\


----------



## MerricB

Henry said:
			
		

> I still have to disagree, because there is a strong delineation between player/DM trust that keeps coming up every time it's discussed. by default, the 3E rules don't seem to trust either.




"The danger of a mutable system is that you or your players will go too far in some undesirable direction and end up with a short-lived campaign. Participants will always be pushing for a game which allows them to become strong and powerful far too quickly. Each will attempt to take the game out of your own hands and mold it to his or her ends. To satisfy this natural desire is to issue a death warrant to a campaign, for it will either be a one-player affair or the players will desert _en masse_ for something more challenging or equitable. Similarly, you must avoid the tendency to drift into areas foreign to the games as a whole. Such campaigns become so strange as to no longer "*AD&D*". They are isolated and will usually wither. Variation and difference are desirable, but both should be kept within the boundaries of the overall system...

"...In fact, what I have attempted is to cram everything vital to the game into this book, so that you will be as completely equipped as possible to face the ravenous packs of players lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce on the unwary referee and devour him or her at the first opportunity.

"Thus, beyond the systems, I have made every effort to give the reasoning and justification for the game... And while there are no optionals for the major systems of *ADVANCED D&D* (for uniformity of rules and procedures from game to game, campaign to campaign, is stressed), there are plenty of areas where your own creativity and imagination are not bounded by the parameters of the game system..." - Gary Gygax, _Dungeon Masters Guide_

"Every rule in the _Player's Handbook_ was written for a reason. That doesn't mean you can't change some rules for your own game. Perhaps your players don't like the way initiative is determined, or you find that the rules for learning new spells are too limiting... Still, changing the way the game does something shouldn't be taken lightly. If the _Player's Handbook_ presents the rules, then throughout the _Dungeon Master's Guide_ you will find explanations for why those rules are the way they are. Read these explanations carefully, and realise the implications for making changes... The D&D game system is flexible, but it is also meant to be a balanced game... Resist the tempation to change the rules just to please your players. Make sure a change genuinely improves your campaign for everyone." - Monte Cook, _Dungeon Master's Guide_

Cheers!


----------



## Aaron L

I do feel that 3E sacrificed something to the altar of game balance.  Im not exactly sure what to call it... verisimilitude?  A certain necessary imbalance?  Making every class equal to each other at every level is what Im talking about.  I personally believe that a Wizard should always just _be better_ than a Fighter of equal level.  Taking that away causes the game to lose something for me.  It loses that fantasy story feel, that simulation of myth, where the Wizard or Sorcerer is always a figure of power and mystery.  


However, I completely understand why it was done, and why it was necessary.  I also consider the tradeoff for this loss of feeling to be more than worth it, with 3Es amount of character customizability (and the multiclassing rules especially) alone making it worth the loss.


I also dislike 3Es dependancy on requisite amounts of magical equipment.  I think it would have been rather simple to gauge monsters in the MM by weather they were high magic or low magic monsters, and what CR they should be for well equipped or poorly equipped parties.  The treasure by level guidelines are so... artificial feeling to me that it really distracts from my feel for the game.  Knowing that at any given level the characters will have about this much wealth just takes away any incentive for adventuring for the sake of riches and glory, when you always know about how much youll have, and nothing you can do will let you go over it.  

I do what I can on that point by ignoring the wealth by level guidelines, and trying my best to gauge monsters myself.  If a party has more magic than normal, I use higher CR monsters, and vice versa.  I also dont have readily available purchasable magic items.  I dont forbid the buying of magic, not at all, (that would be just as artificial as a garaunteed amount of money every level) but I dont have the ubiquitous magic shops everyone seems to think the rules imply should be there.  I have brokers for adventurers who wish to sell magic loot theyve found.  I have Wizards who work for commission.  I have auctioneers who sell lots of magic items recovered from old tombs.  I dont have shops with readily available generic magic swords lined up along a wall.  (and I really think that not many people do, despite the naysayers)    


But all in all, I think the benefits and improvements of 3E in regards to character customizability greatly, vasty, humongously outweigh the disadvantages of it.  I play RPGs to make fantastic characters to imagine having adventures, and any game that allows me to make a more exact represantaton of that characters is, to me, the better game.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kid Socrates said:
			
		

> So you're saying that they said that 3rd Edition was engineered to be more fun? They wanted to make a game that was fun? A game that would be enjoyable for those who played it?
> 
> I'm really not seeing the problem.





The problem is with the implication in that statement that earilier editions, perforce, are _less_ fun (and hence wrongbadfun if you think otherwise).

The problem is with the implication in that statement that the designers can determine what is fun.  This is why, IMHO, you see re-designs of rust monsters, why you see concerns over whether or not some trap is fair, and why the slightest chance that something unexpected might occur being conflated with having to check every 5-foot square for 20 minutes of real time.

To me, the "soul of D&D" (as it were) is this:  "You and your friends enter and explore a strange and unique location, where you encounter dangers and seek rewards."  Also, "The DM roots for the players, but doesn't change the situation to ensure their survival."

*You and your friends*:  Could just be you, but this is a social game, and is more fun with more people.  I find 5 players to be optimal (not 4), but have run games of up to 20 players at one time.

*enter and explore a strange and unique location*:  Whatever that location is, it has secrets, and part of the reward structure is the fun (for the players) of uncovering those secrets.  While it can be linear, it is best if it is not.  While it might only stand up to one expedition, the best locations can withstand multiple expeditions, and gain a life of their own.

Those two terms, _strange_ and _unique_, btw, mean that each location is not a rehash of the last location.  There may be new monsters involved, new hazards....dare I say new rules?  Encountering heretofore unknown prestige classes, feats, and beings is all par for the course.  _Under no circumstances do the players have the right to know everything that is possible in the game, nor is this desirable._  Even empty rooms can and should have intriguing details that point to the purpose and theme of the overall complex.  Finding the remains of previous parties is all to the good, especially if said remains point to more unique and strange places to explore.

*where you encounter dangers*:  Dangers mean things that can kill you.  This is not the same as things that you can kill.

Traps that you automatically find because they are obvious, and that you can disarm because that is also predetermined (i.e., "I take 10" covers any disarm you might ever need to make) are not dangers.  Monsters that are carefully balanced to consume resources instead of pose dangers are not dangers.

Dangers are things that can kill you.  They do not _have to_ kill you, but death should _be possible_.  So should a host of minor maladies that are lesser than death, but are definitely not rewards....including being accidently shunted to a far more dangerous locale.

In other words, survival is not a right.  If you go on adventures, death might find you.  This is fair.

*and seek rewards.*:  You do not automatically gain wealth based on your level.  You do not automatically gain XP.  You actively seek these things out, and earn them.  Search DCs can and will be set to the point where you will not find treasure unless you use your personal cleverness to give yourself modifiers, such as by considering where something might be hidden.  Consequently, you might have more wealth and magic -- or less -- than your level would otherwise indicate.

Most things are hidden in some form of pattern that you ought to be able to figure out.  There may be a few easter eggs for the lucky or intuitive.

If you are travelling to Gargoyle Mountain, you might need to go into the Ruined Fortress first to try to find a magic weapon.  Magic weapons do not simply appear because you need them.  

Likewise, options from splatbooks aren't automatically usable just because you shelled out cash.  In game rewards do not come from shelling out cash in real life.

*The DM roots for the players, but doesn't change the situation to ensure their survival.*:  The DM is not your adversary, although he controls the adversaries of your PCs.  The DM is your friend.  He wants you to do well.  He has crafted situations in which, if you keep your wits about you and are not unlucky, you can do well.  (If not, drop that game and get a new DM!)  However, the DM is not your PCs' friend.  If you do well, you have earned it.  It was not a gift.

Let me repeat that:  If you do well, you have earned it.  It was not a gift.

Conversely, if you do poorly, that is your responsibility too.

Now, that "Soul of D&D" (or the IMHO version of it) can exist in any edition, including but not limited to the current one, and any edition that comes after or before.  However, the only edition that I know really spelled it out clearly was 1st Ed AD&D.  And I know, in real life, players who gained the idea from the 3e books that their fun and success was the DM's responsibility (since disabused of that notion).

3.x has an advantage in terms of ruleset, but earlier editions have an advantage in terms of social contract.


RC


----------



## Henry

Yeah, I know I was being a bit facetious there. Good to know those quotes, because they say almost the same thing: "Don't give in to the players" - just for different reasons.

However, introductory platitudes aren't necessarily followed by the rules that exist in said books. The 1E DMG is not as complete or as smooth as it could have been (just the grapple and overbear rules alone are proof of that!) and the 3E DMG statement is totally overlooked by a player subculture which has developed from those same rules that distrusts any DM rule not in the books or supplements as being intended to screw them.

Every option is one more the DM needs to know intimately, if they want the players who want those options to be happy in his or her game. Quite frankly, having to know every rule for every spell and how it interacts with every other spell is something that's making me glad to lay off DM'ing for a while. 

Our group uses 3E rules, AND we preserve DM authority. The two are not exclusive, yet to hear many people in forums talk, you'd assume it is.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Perhaps I should offer a maxim. The players must accept the DM's ruling only so long as that ruling clearly makes the game more enjoyable for that group.





Here is another maxim:  The players must accept the DM's ruling only so long as they wish to continue playing in that DM's game.

That's the one I use, and it is remarkably effective.

RC


----------



## Numion

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> *The DM roots for the players, but doesn't change the situation to ensure their survival.*:  The DM is not your adversary, although he controls the adversaries of your PCs.  The DM is your friend.  He wants you to do well.  He has crafted situations in which, if you keep your wits about you and are not unlucky, you can do well.  (If not, drop that game and get a new DM!)  However, the DM is not your PCs' friend.  If you do well, you have earned it.  It was not a gift.
> 
> Let me repeat that:  If you do well, you have earned it.  It was not a gift.
> 
> Conversely, if you do poorly, that is your responsibility too.
> 
> Now, that "Soul of D&D" (or the IMHO version of it) can exist in any edition, including but not limited to the current one, and any edition that comes after or before.  However, the only edition that I know really spelled it out clearly was 1st Ed AD&D.  And I know, in real life, players who gained the idea from the 3e books that their fun and success was the DM's responsibility (since disabused of that notion).




Is this one of those '3E is too easy for the adventurers' tirades? I'll point out again, that in my experience, and in my groups experience, 3E is much harder than the previous editions. While the characters can be personalized more easily, the tools on the DMs side has grown much more.

The climatic fights are harder most of the time, the threat of death is closer and the things lurking in the dungeons are nastier.

This is just based on my experience. 3E is deadly, and does not coddle players. It might be difficult to see without playing with a competent DM that actually uses the EL guidelines. It might seem that the zillions of splatbooks make the PCs invincible - they've got _all_ that stuff on their side. But still it's not the thousand splatbooks that go into the dungeon. It's just a few adventurers.

3E, as written and intended, is quite capable of giving them hell.


----------



## WizarDru

Henry said:
			
		

> Yeah, I know I was being a bit facetious there. Good to know those quotes, because they say almost the same thing: "Don't give in to the players" - just for different reasons.




As was I, but one thing I suspect is that in many cases is that such delineation has at least a little to do with an individual gaming group's make up.  I hand-waved rules under AD&D and Basic D&D.  I did so under 3.0 and continue to do so under 3.5, when it makes sense to do so.  Many times when I am suprised by the antagonistic tone of some DM/player relations, it's because I've always played with friends...and it's clear that many people don't.  

I have yet to find a situation under 3.x that I didn't experience in whole or part under every previous edition of the game I've played.  Rules discussions?  Check.  Improvisation?  Check.  House-Rules?  Check.  Rules Lawyers?  Check.  Power Gamers?  Check.  Drama Queens?  Check. 

FUN?  DOUBLE-CHECK.


----------



## Henry

Numion said:
			
		

> This is just based on my experience. 3E is deadly, and does not coddle players. It might be difficult to see without playing with a competent DM that actually uses the EL guidelines. It might seem that the zillions of splatbooks make the PCs invincible - they've got _all_ that stuff on their side. But still it's not the thousand splatbooks that go into the dungeon. It's just a few adventurers.
> 
> 3E, as written and intended, is quite capable of giving them hell.




In my experience, I just had 5 15th level PC's beat the living snot out of a Marilith demon (CR 17) fully spell-enhanced and a Deathshrieker (CR 15) and 3  CR 7 underlings with only two PCs wounded (one pretty badly, one minorly). A major encounter went kind of flat, because the PCs were decked out with the best that the Complete Splatbooks, the Spell Compendium, and all the Eberron books had to offer. I gotta get me some more challenging foes, because these guys haven't seen a challenge since they killed 12 hill giants, 3 cloud giants and a storm giant AT 13th LEVEL.  They fight together well, and thanks to wounding and gravestrike spells, they can obliterate most opponents of their level without breaking a sweat.

Heck, if I threw a Balor at them, I'm not sure if they'll wither and die, or actually kill the thing. YEEK!


----------



## Doug McCrae

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Here is another maxim:  The players must accept the DM's ruling only so long as they wish to continue playing in that DM's game.
> 
> That's the one I use, and it is remarkably effective.



What if every single player in one of your games disagreed with one of your rulings? Would you kick them all? Of course not, you'd almost certainly cave.

When a GM tries to exert 'old school' authority it depends upon isolating the rebellious player or players. If he can't do that, he'll have to back down.


----------



## Henry

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> What if every single player in one of your games disagreed with one of your rulings? Would you kick them all? Of course not, you'd almost certainly cave.




The group instead just agrees not to play with that person as DM any more. It's self-evident to me that if most of the players disagree with you, you need to change it.



> When a GM tries to exert 'old school' authority it depends upon isolating the rebellious player or players. If he can't do that, he'll have to back down.




DMs aren't drill sergeants or cult leaders, but this makes them sound like they are. A good one works for rulings that are fun for the most of the group. But the final authority in-game I've always asserted he or she wields is necessary to keep the group from bogging down in rules look-ups or rules debates. Not everyone remembers the text of Nezram's Ruby Ray from memory, nor the latest errata with how it works with Nestor's Impregnable Wizard Lock, so sometimes the DM has to say, _"I'll rule it works like this, and we'll look it up later."_


----------



## Crothian

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> What if every single player in one of your games disagreed with one of your rulings? Would you kick them all? Of course not, you'd almost certainly cave.




It depends on how seriously the arguements is going.  I'll argue with my whole group with a smile on my face as long as everyone is having fun.  It is just a game and we don't take it that seriously so I'll try to convince them to join me.  But if you have some people who can't help but take any arguement like a personal attack you have to approach that differently.


----------



## Numion

Henry said:
			
		

> In my experience, I just had 5 15th level PC's beat the living snot out of a Marilith demon (CR 17) fully spell-enhanced and a Deathshrieker (CR 15) and 3  CR 7 underlings with only two PCs wounded (one pretty badly, one minorly).




In 1E we killed Hera (the greek goddess) and Tiamat in the span of few days. At 10th level


----------



## thedungeondelver

Henry said:
			
		

> First of all, let's avoid calling each other dishonest, or, in common parlance, "LYING."
> 
> Message from the Admin.
> 
> 
> Now, my personal message:
> 
> KM is probably getting that from some of the statements he's seeing here, such as mine and other peoples' about how the game was almost ALWAYS modified by somebody's house rules. If the majority of people who played earlier editions changed the core rules, then it's a valid observation to make. Now, there were LOTS of people who probably played with no alterations whatsoever -- using weapon speeds, using weapon vs. armor type, using the grappling rules, using Staves of the Magi and ROds of Lordly Might, Decks of many things, using the initiative rules from 1E exactly as written, etc. -- but I really haven't seen them, and none of the people so far who have replied have said they did, either. Even if some did, it's still a minority compared to the many who did..





So let me see if I have this right: his statement and your statement, a whopping sample size of TWO negates the experiences of the four million people who actively played D&D at it's peak in the 80's?

Wow, such large groups you guys must run.


----------



## Flexor the Mighty!

I never met anyone who played 1e as is.  I pretty much bolted the basic D&D combat system onto it.


----------



## Crothian

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> So let me see if I have this right: his statement and your statement, a whopping sample size of TWO negates the experiences of the four million people who actively played D&D at it's peak in the 80's?




Do you have any data to backs this up?  You are a sample size of one just making claims you knew what us 4 million people were doing.  But I don't recall seeing you at any of my games.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Henry said:
			
		

> In my experience, I just had 5 15th level PC's beat the living snot out of a Marilith demon (CR 17) fully spell-enhanced and a Deathshrieker (CR 15) and 3  CR 7 underlings with only two PCs wounded (one pretty badly, one minorly). A major encounter went kind of flat, because the PCs were decked out with the best that the Complete Splatbooks, the Spell Compendium, and all the Eberron books had to offer. I gotta get me some more challenging foes, because these guys haven't seen a challenge since they killed 12 hill giants, 3 cloud giants and a storm giant AT 13th LEVEL.  They fight together well, and thanks to wounding and gravestrike spells, they can obliterate most opponents of their level without breaking a sweat.




If one looks very carefully at the CR system, it is a less than shocking result.

A standard 4 PC level _n_ party can be expected to four separate CR _n_ creatures in a day.

In fact, such a party is often successful against two separate CR _n+2_ in a single day.  Or one single CR _n+3_ or CR _n+4_ creature in a single day.

Now the higher CR critters tend to punish the PCs *swiftly and harshly* for errors or weird quirks of the monster that the party is unusually underoptimized to handle.  But if the players play very, very smart, it is not a surprising result that five level 15th PCs can take down the moral equivalent of a CR 19 encounter.  Your Marilith and friends would probably weigh in slightly south of that.


----------



## thedungeondelver

Crothian said:
			
		

> Do you have any data to backs this up?  You are a sample size of one just making claims you knew what us 4 million people were doing.  But I don't recall seeing you at any of my games.




I quote Frank Mentzer and Gary Gygax on those numbers.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> So let me see if I have this right: his statement and your statement, a whopping sample size of TWO negates the experiences of the four million people who actively played D&D at it's peak in the 80's?
> 
> Wow, such large groups you guys must run.




Well, I have participated in a many dozens of discussions on the general topic in various forums.  

The number of people who have volunteered that they may have tried various particular rules, but did not usually use other 1e rules at all number in the hundreds.  That includes Gary Gygax. 

The number of people who have said they usually used all the rules reasonably closely to how they were written I could count on one hand.

Do you have better data?


----------



## Henry

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> If one looks very carefully at the CR system, it is a less than shocking result.
> 
> A standard 4 PC level _n_ party can be expected to four separate CR _n_ creatures in a day.
> 
> In fact, such a party is often successful against two separate CR _n+2_ in a single day.  Or one single CR _n+3_ or CR _n+4_ creature in a single day.
> 
> Now the higher CR critters tend to punish the PCs *swiftly and harshly* for errors or weird quirks of the monster that the party is unusually underoptimized to handle.  But if the players play very, very smart, it is not a surprising result that five level 15th PCs can take down the moral equivalent of a CR 19 encounter.  Your Marilith and friends would probably weigh in slightly south of that.




However, they had just previously fought 3 Glabrezu Demons and 4 Hezrou demons, 10 minutes in game-time before, and came through that fight with more scratches than this one. Plus, isn't an encounter 3 or 4 levels above supposed to be a "very challenging" encounter? I understand there's lots of variables, but my point is that, under 3.5, using boatloads of splats, the fights really haven't been challenging at all. No unconscious people, no loads of spell power used, no "riding the raggedy edge," etc. It's definitely harder to engineer a challenging but winnable encounter these days. Most of the time, it just gets to be them telling me it was a hard battle, but they didn't use one ounce of their reserves.


----------



## starkad

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Add level limits to elves like in AD&D.  Suddenly, a whole bevy of prestige classes are out of the question.




I have to ask... Why in the hell would you want to do this? I ran 1e and 2e for many years, and I *never* agreed with level caps. They make the game less fun, and those class/race combos to be even less appealing. Is it just for historical purposes? I am honestly curious - it just doesn't make sense to me.



			
				thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Take Feats away from the Fighter class and suddenly they are, by the numbers, _less_ powerful fighters than thieves.




Again, why would you want to do this? The whole purpose of the class is to do cool spiffy fighter-type things, just like in first edition. That's what the feats are there for. If you don't like it, I would suggest narrowing down the list of feats they can take, to suit your style.


-------------------------------

All that said... I ran 1e/2e for many years. I hated that we had over 30 pages of house rules. I hated that I was the *ONLY* one that understood that half-assed set of kludge in my group. My players became disillusioned with the system, because it just didn't work well (for us, and our style). As a result, we played less and less.

Then we heard about 3rd edition, and figured.. What the hell, we'll try it. So we got the PHB, when NONE of the other books were out. We were instantly hooked, and started playing games. We were ecstatic when the DMG came out, and nearly wet ourselves with joy when the MM came out. Ok, so maybe I am exaggerating a bit. However, there is a point to this:

Both systems exist for a reason. Nobody is telling you that you MUST play the 3.0 or 3.5 rules. Nobody is telling you you MUST play 1e or 2e. Nobody. Zero. Most die hard players/DMs that love 1e/2e create their own content, so the argument that 'they don't make new modules for us!' is moot at best. Take the adventure idea, switch the stats back to 1e (easily done, since most critters existed in 1e/2e, if you have all the monstrous compendiums, and if not, you can easily find stats online), use the plot.. Play. Have fun.

That's the whole point. Fun. I think too many people get caught up in this debate on whether 1e or 2e is better. Who cares? Play what you have more fun with. Play what works for YOU.

For ME, 3.5 works nearly flawlessly. I enjoy it immensely, and we've not missed a week playing in over years now, barring christmas week.

/Starkad


----------



## starkad

Henry said:
			
		

> <snip> so sometimes the DM has to say, _"I'll rule it works like this, and we'll look it up later."_




I agree completely; this is the method my group uses now, and it works remarkably well. My players are very honest, as well. Most will point out if I mess something up in their favor.

We also recently started using photoshop, a laptop, and a projector for 'overland' mapping (ie - dungeon overview). This takes a couple of hours preptime for me, to individually block out each room, and reveal them as the party goes.. But it has sped up our gaming at least 2x, if not 3 or 4x over. We tackle much more content, and the game keeps flowing. No more need for mapping, and I make the PCs map out the combat on my tact-tiles. We're large into the miniature tactical gaming, so it works out VERY well for us. I recommend trying it if you have the resources.

Actually, we got inspired by the cool article on d20srd.org.


----------



## Lanefan

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> I should also probably state that I really dislike rule changes that try to make things more "realistic" for follow "common sense." I have to quotation them because I rarely find them to be the case.



Hmmm...I don't think you'd like my game, given that most of my many rule changes are for one or both of exactly those reasons. 

Lanefan


----------



## Raven Crowking

Numion said:
			
		

> Is this one of those '3E is too easy for the adventurers' tirades?




Is this one of those "What happens in my experience is universal" tirades?    

Seriously, I very much doubt that 3E is much harder than the previous editions, although I will also agree that 3E is quite capable of giving PCs hell.

I think I was fairly clear when I said:



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Now, that "Soul of D&D" (or the IMHO version of it) can exist in any edition, including but not limited to the current one, and any edition that comes after or before. However, the only edition that I know really spelled it out clearly was 1st Ed AD&D. And I know, in real life, players who gained the idea from the 3e books that their fun and success was the DM's responsibility (since disabused of that notion).
> 
> 3.x has an advantage in terms of ruleset, but earlier editions have an advantage in terms of social contract.




In other words, it is my experience that it is more difficult for players to get the "as intended" part than in 1e (but not necessarily than in 2e).  Clear?

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> What if every single player in one of your games disagreed with one of your rulings? Would you kick them all? Of course not, you'd almost certainly cave.





Try me.


RC


EDIT:  I should clarify.  No, I would not "kick them all"; rather, I imagine they would kick me out.  My DMing style may not be what any given group of players is looking for, but there is absolutely no way that I am going to DM a game that I don't enjoy.  Period.  It is an explicit part of the written social contract for my group that, when I am running a game, I have absolute authority to do so.

I am willing to listen to argument, but my game is not a democracy.  The _table_ is more democratic, however, and you can certainly vote with your feet.  I don't force anyone to play.

RC


----------



## Crothian

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Try me.




Pop Quiz Hot shot!!  

The players all disagree with your ruling : What do you do?    

_ I rarely get to make Speed references!!_


----------



## diaglo

Crothian said:
			
		

> Pop Quiz Hot shot!!
> 
> The players all disagree with your ruling : What do you do?
> 
> _ I rarely get to make Speed references!!_




roll 2 six siders and check for the reaction score.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Crothian said:
			
		

> Pop Quiz Hot shot!!
> 
> The players all disagree with your ruling : What do you do?
> 
> _ I rarely get to make Speed references!!_





More context is required to answer your question.

(1)  I've made a genuine mistake and it is pointed out to me:  The mistake is corrected, and the game moves on.  At this point, I don't see any real disagreement or backing down required, on anyone's part.

(2)  Something could be interpretted in more than one way, and the group disagrees with my interpretation, and it is relatively unimportant to me:  "Okay, that seems reasonable," and the game moves on.  At this point, I don't see any real disagreement or backing down required, on anyone's part.

(3)  Something could be interpretted in more than one way, and the group disagrees with my interpretation, and it is relatively important to me:  "Sorry, but this is the way it works in this world" and move on.  At this point, I don't see any real disagreement or backing down required, on anyone's part.

(4)  In the event of (3) above, the problem remains outstanding:  "We can talk about this outside game time, but that's the way it is right here, right now."  At this point, some backing down is required on the part of the players, and the issue can be deferred to later discussions.  If need be, if I am convinced by the other side, I will do some ret-conning, but it is unlikely.  Of course, in this event, I would have discovered that the problem was actually that I was mistaken, or that the ruling wasn't as important as I first thought.

(5)  Both (3) and (4) fail to resolve a problem:  After a second warning, if the problem continues, I pack up the game.  Hasn't happened yet, but I once did have to give a second warning about a ruling-related issue (related to long-term concentration, specifically as relates to flying and riding a horse).  

In no case have I ever removed a ruling I felt strongly about, or confident in, merely because any member (or all members) of a group felt otherwise.  Of course, I've never actually run into much "all members of a group felt otherwise" but I'd rather get a new group than be told what I can and cannot do as DM.  In fact, I'd rather not DM.

RC


----------



## Crothian

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> More context is required to answer your question.




I agree, it was a post in humor more then expecting a serious respons.  Good response though!!


----------



## Raven Crowking

Thanks!


----------



## Lanefan

A few thoughts here:
*****
First off, to save QFT-ing a long post, I'll just say I agree with Raven's post #159 this thread; well said!
*****
I find myself in an odd position in this discussion.  We're being told that 3.5 is as good as it gets, or at least as good as it's got so far...and for those as likes it, that's obviously a valid opinion.  But, if I were to jump into this Brave New System, two things would have to happen: 1, I'd have to leave behind a 1e-based system it's taken 25 years to develop (between my own modifications and those of DM's before me) - yes, that's perhaps partly an ego thing, but hey... , and 2, unless I started making changes, some aspects of the game I quite like would be lost, and that to me is more significant.  A few examples:

- potions, scrolls, and magic items that just do what they do, and aren't tied to any particular spell or creation method;
- some rather elegant mechanics dealing with coming back from the dead, system-shock, etc.;
- a simple undead-turning system;
- spells taking time to cast rather than resolving immediately;
etc.

Now, obviously any of these could be houseruled in, but by what I'm reading above 3.5e doesn't need houserules.  And there's the Dreaded Knock On Effect to consider... 
*****
Someone mentioned earlier about 1e classes not being balanced.  One difference between 1e and 3e is that in 3e there seems to be a general expectation that the classes willbe played about evenly; in 1e there was a general expectation that about 40% of PC's would be Fighters, 30% Clerics, 20% Thieves, and 10% Wizards*...in other words, that the classes would not be played in the same amount.  In the games our crew have played, with various class-race restrictions removed, it's worked out much closer to 40-20-20-20...but there's still a strong shift toward Fighters.

* = I might have Clerics and Thieves mixed up, but the 40-30-20-10 breakdown remains.

Lanefan


----------



## darious777

Numion said:
			
		

> This is just based on my experience. 3E is deadly, and does not coddle players. It might be difficult to see without playing with a competent DM that actually uses the EL guidelines. It might seem that the zillions of splatbooks make the PCs invincible - they've got _all_ that stuff on their side. But still it's not the thousand splatbooks that go into the dungeon. It's just a few adventurers.
> 
> 3E, as written and intended, is quite capable of giving them hell.




Heh.  Just this past week I had a player say that he wasn't going to take a feat out of a supplement because he didn't want me to use the same feat against the party.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Lanefan said:
			
		

> First off, to save QFT-ing a long post, I'll just say I agree with Raven's post #159 this thread; well said!




Thank you.



> - potions, scrolls, and magic items that just do what they do, and aren't tied to any particular spell or creation method;




I have some house rules that might help you with that.  Email me at my hotmail account (see my sig).

RC


----------



## thedungeondelver

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> Well, I have participated in a many dozens of discussions on the general topic in various forums.
> 
> The number of people who have volunteered that they may have tried various particular rules, but did not usually use other 1e rules at all number in the hundreds.  That includes Gary Gygax.
> 
> The number of people who have said they usually used all the rules reasonably closely to how they were written I could count on one hand.
> 
> Do you have better data?




You're the one who made the indefensible comment that people didn't have fun playing older editions of D&D.  You come up with some data, sparky.


----------



## Crothian

Ya, those old house rules threads were always great especially when Gary and many other old timers would post in them.  The threads are here in the general forum if anyone was interested enough to locate them.

Of course there are plenty of threads here and on RPG.net of people not havign fun with 1e.  The game was not for everyone.


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

Crothian said:
			
		

> The game was not for everyone.



Just like Hungry Hungry Hippos!  Damn, I hated that game; I could never get the most marbles.


----------



## Umbran

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> In no case have I ever removed a ruling I felt strongly about, or confident in, merely because any member (or all members) of a group felt otherwise.  Of course, I've never actually run into much "all members of a group felt otherwise" but I'd rather get a new group than be told what I can and cannot do as DM.  In fact, I'd rather not DM.




Wow, you're either lucky (to not have been in such a situation) or unlucky (to not have a group you loved so much that your GM-perogative could be overriden by that love).

I was playing Mage: The Ascension some years ago.  Long-standing campaign of many years, all good friends.  The GM put us in a position, which, by definition, had only two ways out.  Those were the rules.

Before we knew the possibilities, we accidentally eliminated one of them.  The other was abhorrent to all the PCs.  No discussion was necessary - we agreed that we would not take the second option.  We offered the GM seven other ways we could think of to get out.  He did not agree to any of them.  We told him then that, if that were the case, this game was over, as the characters could no longer be played.  We seriously started considering playing other things...

Oddly enough, the GM chose to allow us an out.  Not because we were right, but because it would end the fun for everyone otherwise.

When the players are friends, absolutism goes out the door.  "My way or the highway" only works if your way actually works for the folks you want to play with, and players are not always expendable.  While he doesn't have to do it constantly, occasionally a GM can feel he was in the right, but need to change anyway for the good of the group.


----------



## Umbran

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> You come up with some data, sparky.




I see a distinct rise in acrimony, and a distinct drop in the level of respect being shown in this thread.  Please, folks, do not continue along this path.


----------



## Mark CMG

Philotomy Jurament said:
			
		

> Just like Hungry Hungry Hippos!  Damn, I hated that game; I could never get the most marbles.





It helps to play hungry, to think like a hippo . . . _and to have lost your marbles . . ._


----------



## Mark CMG

Crothian said:
			
		

> Pop Quiz Hot shot!!
> 
> The players all disagree with your ruling : What do you do?





Remind them that they do not have full knowledge of all the circumstances as the DM does.  Remind them that they have the choice to play things out, in-game, even if they disagree with things, or they can discover things out-of-game, in a meta-game discussion, and spoil any surprises or fun that might have been attached to the circumstances.  Remind them that a level or trust must exist between the players and the DM for maximum fun to be gleaned.  Remind them I prefer playing with players who trust me.  Remind them that WotC surveys have shown that millions of people play D&D.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

post deleted


----------



## MerricB

Lanefan said:
			
		

> But, if I were to jump into this Brave New System, two things would have to happen: 1, I'd have to leave behind a 1e-based system it's taken 25 years to develop (between my own modifications and those of DM's before me) - yes, that's perhaps partly an ego thing, but hey... ,




If a game is working for you, why change it?



> and 2, unless I started making changes, some aspects of the game I quite like would be lost, and that to me is more significant.  A few examples:
> 
> - potions, scrolls, and magic items that just do what they do, and aren't tied to any particular spell or creation method;




Hmm. There's nothing really stopping you from doing that.



> - some rather elegant mechanics dealing with coming back from the dead, system-shock, etc.;




Heh. That 3e doesn't have Resurrection Survival chances says a lot about how the game has changed. AD&D was created very much in the dungeon & play daily style. By 3e, adventures tend to be a lot more diverse, and often players only get to play 1/fortnight or 1/month. There's a big difference between the two styles.



> - a simple undead-turning system;




Hmm. Well, AD&D had a simple system primarily because there were only a few undead and you can have them all on the same table. I don't think 3e's system is much clunkier.



> - spells taking time to cast rather than resolving immediately;




Interestingly, there are spells that take time to cast, only completing 1 or more rounds after the spell is begun. (And even for the "resolve immediately" type, the time to cast is abstracted into the Concentration check to cast them successfully).
etc.



> Now, obviously any of these could be houseruled in, but by what I'm reading above 3.5e doesn't need houserules.  And there's the Dreaded Knock On Effect to consider...




Rubbish! 3.5e allows houserules (it even says so in the DMG). It just doesn't _need_ them to be playable. Play with an AD&D 4th level monk and roll surprise, and then you need a houserule.



> Someone mentioned earlier about 1e classes not being balanced.  One difference between 1e and 3e is that in 3e there seems to be a general expectation that the classes will be played about evenly;




The expectation is rather that all four types of PC will adventure (Cleric, Fighter, Wizard, Rogue). Any additional PCs could be of any type.



> in 1e there was a general expectation that about 40% of PC's would be Fighters, 30% Clerics, 20% Thieves, and 10% Wizards*...




See _White Plume Mountain_. The actual values were 40% Fighters, 30% Magic-Users, 20% Clerics and 10% Thieves.



> in other words, that the classes would not be played in the same amount.  In the games our crew have played, with various class-race restrictions removed, it's worked out much closer to 40-20-20-20...but there's still a strong shift toward Fighters.




From personal observation, I believe Fighter-types are much more popular in 3E as well; clerics being the least popular. However, 3e has a lot of viable classes, so it becomes a lot more difficult to categorise the groups into the simple AD&D method.

Consider my Ulek group:
* Bard 5/Druid 1/Rogue 2 (moving toward Fochluchan Lyrist, an old-school bard type)
* Incarnate 8 (acting somewhat like a cleric)
* Soulborn 8 (similar to a paladin)
* Druid 3/Wizard 3/Arcane Heirophant 2 (effectively a Druid 5/Wizard 5)
* Knight 8 (cavalier!)
* Soulknife 8 (psychic fighter-type)

So, 3 Fighter-types, 1.5 cleric types, 1.0 wizard types, and 0.5 Rogue type. Sort of. Possibly.

Cheers!


----------



## diaglo

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> post deleted




i don't get this.

posts were included in all of the editions of the game. they helped hold up the the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Keep on the Borderlands, the Castle in Barovia, even the 2edADnD version of Castle Greyhawk.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

diaglo said:
			
		

> i don't get this.
> 
> posts were included in all of the editions of the game. they helped hold up the the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Keep on the Borderlands, the Castle in Barovia, even the 2edADnD version of Castle Greyhawk.




When converting over to 3e, we converted over to hex maps as well.  The posts ended up in all kinds of weird places relative to the hex grid.  So we deleted them.  The posts have not been missed.

Just one more way that 3e is infinitely superior to everything that ever can before and ever will come henceforth.


----------



## diaglo

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> When converting over to 3e, we converted over to hex maps as well.  The posts ended up in all kinds of weird places relative to the hex grid.  So we deleted them.  The posts have not been missed.
> 
> Just one more way that 3e is infinitely superior to everything that ever can before and ever will come henceforth.





see now you are talking my lingo.

hex maps harken back to Chainmail.

and Outdoor Survival.

and thus OD&D(1974)


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> When converting over to 3e, we converted over to hex maps as well.  The posts ended up in all kinds of weird places relative to the hex grid.  So we deleted them.  The posts have not been missed.
> 
> Just one more way that 3e is infinitely superior to everything that ever can before and ever will come henceforth.



That has to be the most coherent and valid "3E rulez" argument I've ever read.  It explains everything!

I still hate Hungry Hungry Hippos, though.


----------



## Thurbane

Henry said:
			
		

> Now, there were LOTS of people who probably played with no alterations whatsoever -- using weapon speeds, using weapon vs. armor type, using the grappling rules, using Staves of the Magi and ROds of Lordly Might, Decks of many things, using the initiative rules from 1E exactly as written, etc. -- but I really haven't seen them, and none of the people so far who have replied have said they did, either. Even if some did, it's still a minority compared to the many who did..



Mark me (and my group) down as one of them.   

In fact, one of the first things we all commented on after switching to 3.5 was "Where are the weapon speeds? What's the point in using a dagger these days?".


----------



## Thurbane

WizarDru said:
			
		

> I have yet to find a situation under 3.x that I didn't experience in whole or part under every previous edition of the game I've played.  Rules discussions?  Check.  Improvisation?  Check.  House-Rules?  Check.  Rules Lawyers?  Check.  Power Gamers?  Check.  Drama Queens?  Check.
> 
> FUN?  DOUBLE-CHECK.



Quoted for truth. Couldn't have said it better myself.


----------



## Thurbane

Sorry to triple post, but I want to make an additonal point:

I and my group personally found 1E and more particularly 2E perfect playable exactly by the RAW, with the possible over-used exception of unarmed combat. The only house rules we added were added for personal taste, not because we thought the system was fundamentally broken.

Also, to say or imply that 3.X is more fun than 1E or 2E simply by virtue of the completeness or coherence of rules is like saying that a book on copyright laws is more fun to read than Terry Pratchett novel - it is totally subjective to the individual, and not "provable" as such.


----------



## Numion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> What's the point in using a dagger these days?".




You can throw it?


----------



## diaglo

Numion said:
			
		

> You can throw it?





you could throw it in 1edADnD too.

heck. take the dart. why use one in the newest edition. yet in 2edADnD with the Complete...nevermind. forget the dart. Dodge didn't know how to make a car. EVAR.


diaglo "a Chevy mang" Ooi


----------



## Mark CMG

Thurbane said:
			
		

> In fact, one of the first things we all commented on after switching to 3.5 was "Where are the weapon speeds? What's the point in using a dagger these days?".





I guess you had yet to have a character _swallowed whole_, eh?


----------



## Kormydigar

Henry said:
			
		

> However, they had just previously fought 3 Glabrezu Demons and 4 Hezrou demons, 10 minutes in game-time before, and came through that fight with more scratches than this one. Plus, isn't an encounter 3 or 4 levels above supposed to be a "very challenging" encounter? I understand there's lots of variables, but my point is that, under 3.5, using boatloads of splats, the fights really haven't been challenging at all. No unconscious people, no loads of spell power used, no "riding the raggedy edge," etc. It's definitely harder to engineer a challenging but winnable encounter these days. Most of the time, it just gets to be them telling me it was a hard battle, but they didn't use one ounce of their reserves.




Unfortunately for us all unless your group consists of Lidda,Tordek, Mialee, and Jozan those CR guidelines are nowhere near accurate.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Kormydigar said:
			
		

> Unfortunately for us all unless your group consists of Lidda,Tordek, Mialee, and Jozan those CR guidelines are nowhere near accurate.




Adding lots of splatbooks has the predictable effect of stepping up the PC power level relative to vanilla monsters when used by players who choose to go for it.  People have been grousing about that since Unearthed Arcana in the olden days.  

Heck, diaglo has probably been grousing about power creep for even longer.  

The CR guidelines still provide useful information, you just cannot use them at face value.


----------



## MerricB

Henry said:
			
		

> In my experience, I just had 5 15th level PC's beat the living snot out of a Marilith demon (CR 17) fully spell-enhanced and a Deathshrieker (CR 15) and 3  CR 7 underlings with only two PCs wounded (one pretty badly, one minorly).




Err... We're talking about an EL 17 or 18 encounter with a PC group that is close to APL 16. Especially if they're stronger that 25-point buy, I'd assess them as APL 16. That makes the encounter only +1 or +2.

The CR 7 underlings are cannon fodder. They won't contribute much. So, the Marilith and the Deathshrieker are the foes of note.



> Unfortunately for us all unless your group consists of Lidda,Tordek, Mialee, and Jozan those CR guidelines are nowhere near accurate.




Actually, they're pretty accurate. If I send a bunch of 10th level characters against a CR 20 monster, I know what the result is likely to be. The question is what the tolerance of CR is. Generally, I think CR is accurate within +/- 1, although high-level adds so many variables that it begins to become less accurate, but +/- 2 even at the higher levels is probably about right.

What is probably _essential_ is that not all of the encounters are of the same type. If, for instance, you always used low-AC, high-HP melee types against your party, then those encounters all share enough similarity that their CR modification would be the same. If, however, over a number of encounters you used a combination of meleeists, high AC guys, spell-users, and such, although each effective EL might vary a bit, the average EL would be much closer to true.

Note that Wizards, in their climactic encounters in adventures, often use APL+4. Henry's example isn't even close to that.

Cheers!


----------



## diaglo

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> Heck, diaglo has probably been grousing about power creep for even longer.




Supplement I Greyhawk.

the introduction of a stat bonus greater than 1. esp with percentile str... +3 to hit. what were they thinking.


diaglo "i still say Gary wrote the UA for his powergaming scions" Ooi


----------



## Thurbane

To open a new can of worms: do the strict formulas, CR system, WBL system etc. give off a distinct "video game" vibe to anyone else, or is it just me?


----------



## Psion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> To open a new can of worms: do the strict formulas, CR system, WBL system etc. give off a distinct "video game" vibe to anyone else, or is it just me?




Why would it?

"Video gamey" feel, if such a thing can be said to exist in RPGs, has to do with how you play the game (restarts, button-combos, pixel-pushing, etc.), and that really has no meaningful correlation to CR that I can discern.


----------



## Crothian

Thurbane said:
			
		

> To open a new can of worms: do the strict formulas, CR system, WBL system etc. give off a distinct "video game" vibe to anyone else, or is it just me?




Not me because we never see it at the gaming table.  As a DM I do all of it behind the Great and Powerful Oz!!  THe players never have any idea if I'm using it and how and to what extent.


----------



## Allensh

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Unfortunately the internet is my only yardstick, as I don't have any "realtime" contact with other gaming groups. I agree though that it is not an ideal window into a "typical" gaming group.
> 
> Having said that, I still can't help but feel the "legalese" tone of the rules and the prevailing attitude that these rules must be observed to the letter of the law makes (some) players inherently distrust their DMs. Heave forbid if a DM were to fudge a roll in the interest of keeping a story flowing ("Railroading!!!") or to ignore a rule that would detract from a session ("RAW!!!"). I agree that the DM shouldnt be some haughty tyrant who dishes out illogcial rulings at will, but at the end of the day he is the guy putting the time and effort into creating a running a setting for the players to interract with. IMHO, this should earn him (at the very least) some respect from the players, and the right to make a final ruling, even if it steps outside the RAW on occasion.




Thank you! That is exactly how I feel! And that was the problem, I believe, with the last game I ran. One player, in particular, just didn't trust me, or from what he said, GMs in general. I just can't run in that environment.

Allen


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> To open a new can of worms: do the strict formulas, CR system, WBL system etc. give off a distinct "video game" vibe to anyone else, or is it just me?




Er, what does WBL stand for?

3E has undoubtedly been influenced by video games, but it has also been influenced by board games, other roleplaying games, and other sources. Then too, D&D has had a huge influence on video games, so it's no surprise that some of the D&D-inspired ideas have found a place in D&D!

Strict formulas owe more to wargaming than anything else, I feel. (See Battletech, Car Wars and similar for the formulas to create mechs or cars). Then too, games like GURPS and HEROES have made a virtue of formulas in the past. It's not really anything new to the genre.

CR doesn't owe anything to videogames, AFAIK. It's purely a guide to help the DM assess how difficult an encounter is, and also how much XP it is worth. What's unusual about CR is it isn't formulaic! The values are based far more on playtesting and comparison to playtested creatures. (AD&D is more formulaic in this matter, in fact).

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

Allensh said:
			
		

> Thank you! That is exactly how I feel! And that was the problem, I believe, with the last game I ran. One player, in particular, just didn't trust me, or from what he said, GMs in general. I just can't run in that environment.




Nor should you; however, I don't feel that this is a rules issue. This is one of group dynamics. I've certainly had players that I don't want in my group - who were demanding, distrustful and disruptive - regardless of what edition or game I was using.

Cheers!


----------



## Raven Crowking

Umbran said:
			
		

> Wow, you're either lucky (to not have been in such a situation) or unlucky (to not have a group you loved so much that your GM-perogative could be overriden by that love).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> When the players are friends, absolutism goes out the door.  "My way or the highway" only works if your way actually works for the folks you want to play with, and players are not always expendable.  While he doesn't have to do it constantly, occasionally a GM can feel he was in the right, but need to change anyway for the good of the group.





I would say, overall, that I have been lucky.  OTOH, I have had gaming friends that I didn't DM for, and I have had gaming friends that I was unwilling to be a player for.  Not enjoying the same type of game, IMHO, shouldn't be a friendship-buster.  

"My way or the highway" only works if you want to ensure that your players really are right for your style of DMing, if you want to DM the game you prefer more than you want to DM under any and all circumstances, and if your style is broad enough for your way to appeal to a reasonably large number of potential players.

I would say, while he doesn't have to do it, occasionally a GM can feel he was in the right, but _want_ to change anyway for the good of the group.  The GM never _needs_ to change.  A subtle distinction, perhaps, but in my opinion an important one.

My response to Crothian (sorry, I can't check the post # until I submit reply EDIT: http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3103373&postcount=183) that broke down my process for dealing with these sorts of problems was, I think, pretty clear.  If I don't think something is important, I am willing to give a lot of leeway.  If I think something is important, I am still willing to discuss it outside of game time.  But if a rules argument derails the game, the game is over until next session.  No exceptions.

While, as I said, I do think that I have been relatively lucky in terms of players, let me say that I started playing on Christmas in 1979 in Wisconsin, joined the U.S. Army in 1984 (where I ran games for different groups in Missouri, Indiana, Virginia, and Louisiana, both military and civilian), moved to California (where I ran games in Riverside and Santa Monica), and then moved to Toronto (where I ran games for different groups of players).  I've run games for a lot of different players in 1e, 2e, and 3e.  There's a lot of water under this bridge.

That conflict resolution method, from my first High School game to the last game I have run, has _never_ forced me to close a game early for a rules argument.  _*Never.*_  Not in any edition.  I have closed games early for other reasons (most often if I didn't feel up to par), and my players have always understood that I would close the game early.  I have never wanted for players, and I have never had fewer than half a dozen people who wanted in if a slot opened.

Maybe it's just anecdotal evidence, but I believe that method works.    


RC


----------



## Thurbane

Psion said:
			
		

> Why would it?
> 
> "Video gamey" feel, if such a thing can be said to exist in RPGs, has to do with how you play the game (restarts, button-combos, pixel-pushing, etc.), and that really has no meaningful correlation to CR that I can discern.



By "viedo game feel" I mean that CR and WBL sets up an atmosphere of "you cannot confront the end of level boss until you have the red key and the BFG9000".

Again I stress, this is just my personal gut feeling, rather than fact.


			
				MerricB said:
			
		

> Er, what does WBL stand for?
> 
> 3E has undoubtedly been influenced by video games, but it has also been influenced by board games, other roleplaying games, and other sources. Then too, D&D has had a huge influence on video games, so it's no surprise that some of the D&D-inspired ideas have found a place in D&D!
> 
> Strict formulas owe more to wargaming than anything else, I feel. (See Battletech, Car Wars and similar for the formulas to create mechs or cars). Then too, games like GURPS and HEROES have made a virtue of formulas in the past. It's not really anything new to the genre.
> 
> CR doesn't owe anything to videogames, AFAIK. It's purely a guide to help the DM assess how difficult an encounter is, and also how much XP it is worth. What's unusual about CR is it isn't formulaic! The values are based far more on playtesting and comparison to playtested creatures. (AD&D is more formulaic in this matter, in fact).
> 
> Cheers!



Excellent points as usual, Merric.

WBL = Wealth By Level


----------



## I'm A Banana

As Henry pointed out, I wasn't saying that the older editions weren't fun (obviously, they were), just that they were poorly designed out of the box to deliver that fun, as shown by the near-nessecesity of house rules (which is shown by evidence drawn mostly from these boards -- Gary Gygax himself did not play with the rules out of the box). They relied instead upon the people putting them together inventing fun themselves. Like turning a cardboard box into a toy, it's something that can be a lot of fun and very rewarding, but a cardboard box is a poorly designed toy.

As far as the soul of the game is concerned, it seems that most consider it broad enough to apply in the new edition, too. The new edition is D&D, just different D&D. Those who don't seem to usually cite the mechanical changes or the DM/Player relationship change. The former seems to be a debate against quality of the mechanics -- those who see the new rules as horrible for whatever reason cite the new edition as entirely different, while those who see the new rules as on the whole better suited to gameplay are more ready to adapt a D&D with a different "skeleton." Similarly, those who have no knowledge of the "plays with friends" kind of mentality that 3e supports seem to prefer the older language when dealing with a DM's authority, marking the change in editions as a distancing from their norms. Those who don't want their friends leaving the room because they aren't having fun instead prefer the dynamic of players knowing what makes a good game and what doesn't. 

It seems that those who hate 3e the most have had VERY GOOD experiences with older editions, and incomprable experiences with the new one. These people seem to be in the minority -- most people's play experiences with older editions may have been fun, but in the new edition they are more fun and less work. 

And since the quality of older editions was largely dependant upon how good of a DM you happened to land (because the rules themselves were unreliable), it seems that it may be slightly more than simple nostalgia (though certainly that may play a role). Apparently, the "soul of the game" is in the DM and the playing group -- get a good one, and it's all fun. Have a bad one, and it's all bad. 

3e, then, wants to create a baseline "good body," something that can be relied on as a set of fundamental assumptions, a moral code and guideline for the game that leads to the most people having the most fun. But, of course, a bad DM or bad players can still ruin it (by doing the same thing they always have, mucking with things that work), and a good DM can still make it amazing (largely by doing the same thing as a bad DM). Only now, positive experiences are easy to get out of mediocre DM's and casual gaming groups due to the base mechanics and assumptions of the game. 

3e is a good body. Even inhabited by a moderate soul, it can accomplish great things. Moderate souls just tended to play games other than D&D in the days of older editions. And today, moderate souls are doing things like playing videogames. And moderate souls are those the game must persuade to come to it in order to survive and grow.

Though I'm probably getting muddled in metaphor, here. 



> To open a new can of worms: do the strict formulas, CR system, WBL system etc. give off a distinct "video game" vibe to anyone else, or is it just me?
> ....
> By "viedo game feel" I mean that CR and WBL sets up an atmosphere of "you cannot confront the end of level boss until you have the red key and the BFG9000".




I don't think so, because the EL guidelines basically state "The end of level boss should come by every once in a while and beat the crap out of you basically for fun, and sometimes  you'll be facing your weakest foes after the tough ones have been run away from." 

I do think that there is a *baseline assumption of power* keyed into the system, but this is true in any RPG system. In 3e, at least, the stipulation is that it is there so you can accurately guage your diversion, not to adhere to it like a doctrine.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Thurbane said:
			
		

> To open a new can of worms: do the strict formulas, CR system, WBL system etc. give off a distinct "video game" vibe to anyone else, or is it just me?




It did, but I got over it.

Mostly, I wrote some of 1e and 2e back into the rules, and then I also stole...um, borrowed...the best 3rd party ideas I could find.  Then I re-wrote all the classes and races.  My game feels _nothing_ like M:tG!

(But I still like Ethereal Filchers.  Go figure.)

Seriously, though, the "video game feel" is, IMHO, the byproduct of following formulas.  You don't have to do this.  Just make sure that your players know that you are running an "as is" world.

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget, good post with #220.

Obviously, I disagree with the base assumption that earlier editions were cardboard toys in comparison to the current edition.  OTOH, the current edition does quite a few things that the earlier ones didn't do well.  IMHO, of course.

I don't believe that the relative prevelance of house rules are a weakness in a role-playing game.  They help to make experiences unique....even in 3.X, a strong campaign will contain unique prestige classes, for example.

I would argue that the new ruleset is better, but that the old rulesets weren't bad.  I would also argue that the new ruleset, given the same contextual text as the older rulesets (particularly 1e), would be a stronger (more fun) product.  But I am sure others would disagree.

I would also say, from a DM perspective, that the new ruleset is more work.  But the important question isn't just how much work are you doing, but also how much of that work can you re-use, and what are you getting in return for that work?  The flexibility of the d20 System gives lots of reward for the extra work, so it is more than balanced out.  Even if I would like some more shortcut-type products.    



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Similarly, those who have no knowledge of the "plays with friends" kind of mentality that 3e supports seem to prefer the older language when dealing with a DM's authority, marking the change in editions as a distancing from their norms. Those who don't want their friends leaving the room because they aren't having fun instead prefer the dynamic of players knowing what makes a good game and what doesn't.




This, however, I really disagree with.

As I said earlier, I started playing on Christmas in 1979 in Wisconsin, joined the U.S. Army in 1984 (where I ran games for different groups in Missouri, Indiana, Virginia, and Louisiana, both military and civilian), moved to California (where I ran games in Riverside and Santa Monica), and then moved to Toronto (where I ran games for different groups of players). I've run games for a lot of different players in 1e, 2e, and 3e. There's a lot of water under this bridge.

I have never veered from the buck stopping with the DM.  I have never wanted for players, and I have never had fewer than half a dozen people who wanted in if a slot opened.  And, may I say, the people that I play with are nearly always friends.  They may not be friends when they first ask to play, but they end up that way.

Maybe it's just anecdotal evidence, but I believe that method works.

Players knowing what makes a good game, btw, is a good thing under any edition, and has nothing to do with the authority (or lack thereof) of the DM.  All changing the language of the dynamic does, IMHO, is cause smart groups to spell out a conflict resolution mechanic ahead of time (be it DM authority, group vote, or whatever) so that in the case of a disagreement the game doesn't grind to a halt.  

Oh, yeah, and it sells more books.

WotC wisely markets to players.  Because there are more players than DMs, something that the players want is automatically going to sell more than something aimed at DMs.  In order to make those sales, though, the players first have to be convinced that, should they buy this book, they will be able to use the content therein.  If the players buy and use the book, it is nearly a sure thing that the DMs will also have to do the same.  This is a profitable business model.

The problem, of course, is that if the DM has to read and agree to use the book first, you are going to sell a lot fewer books.  However could WotC resolve this problem?

"Plays with friends" is the mentality behind almost every game ever made, rpg or not.  Very few people go out to play Scrabble with their bitterest foes.  The supposed change in mentality is, IMHO, as big a myth as that of houserules in 3.x causing complex balance problems that spin out of control.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> By "video game feel" I mean that CR and WBL sets up an atmosphere of "you cannot confront the end of level boss until you have the red key and the BFG9000".
> 
> Again I stress, this is just my personal gut feeling, rather than fact.




Hmm. In some ways, 1e is more guilty of this. Consider that you needed a +2 or +3 weapon to harm certain monsters, and without that you couldn't touch them at all. In contrast, 3.5e allows PCs to harm monsters regardless of the potency of the weapon they use.

I really don't think the use of plot items is a 3e trait. Rather, it's the curse (or feature) of certain adventure styles. Consider the _Temple of Elemental Evil_ where you need the Orb of Golden Death to succesfully complete the adventure - although lesser revelations are possible. Both _Lost Tomb of Martek_ and _Tomb of Horrors_ use that paradigm far more. It's there in current adventures as well, but, as in the 1e days, not in all of them. _Sons of Gruumsh_ and _Keep on the Borderlands_ are quite free of these items.

Wealth By Level is really, really fascinating to examine. It is, in many ways, an application of the advice Gary Gygax gave in the original DMG, where he urges moderation in placing magic items (and inveighs against the "Monty Haul" and "Killer DM" styles of play). What is the middle ground? Wealth by level shows you what it is... you wouldn't know where it was from the notes in AD&D, just that you had to be careful. (And the random tables allow a vorpal sword to appear in a 1st level adventure...)

One of the most important features of WBL isn't related to balance - it is, instead, related to keeping something for the PCs to achieve! If a 8th level fighter finds a +5 vorpal sword, then what is there left for him to gain? This also relates to the extended life of 3E over levels. In AD&D, the system is set up with the expectation that most games will end at about 12th level. In 3E, achieving 20th level is almost expected! So, at 20th level you want to be still gaining good items, rather than going "A +4 sword? Boring! I had one of those at 8th level!"

Of course, there is nothing stating that WBL is something you must hew to; instead, it's yet another guideline you have for gauging the power level of your PCs. If they have greater than the normal WPL, then they'll obviously be able to take on greater challenges than perhaps their level would indicate... and thus you're better able to create encounters and adventures for them.

Cheers!


----------



## Psion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> By "viedo game feel" I mean that CR and WBL sets up an atmosphere of "you cannot confront the end of level boss until you have the red key and the BFG9000".




Okay... I think you are reaching to demonize. As someone was paining to point out in another thread (or maybe it was earlier in this one), CR is just a refinement of a system that already existed.

It's just easier to use.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Psion said:
			
		

> Okay... I think you are reaching to demonize. As someone was paining to point out in another thread (or maybe it was earlier in this one), CR is just a refinement of a system that already existed.
> 
> It's just easier to use.





Yeah, I pointed that out in this thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=173142) some time ago, and the thought was not well received (to say the least!).  See post 28 (http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3036254&postcount=28) then read some of the responses.  

Of course, it was a wise person who said, in Post 45:

I think they operate in a similar fashion. I just think that the CR version is a more user friendly and functional. Basing a number around "a typical challenge for party level X" is a lot more meaningful and useful an end metric for challenge than an XP number. I have no notion off the top of my head what challenge a given XP number represents for a given level of party.​
Actually, quite interesting reading on that thread, and it should remind us how much of the old is retainined in the new under clever guises and better presentation.


RC


----------



## Thurbane

Psion said:
			
		

> Okay... I think you are reaching to demonize. As someone was paining to point out in another thread (or maybe it was earlier in this one), CR is just a refinement of a system that already existed.
> 
> It's just easier to use.



Not at all. You snipped the part about it being nothing but a gut feeling, BTW.

For my gaming group, I find the CR/WBL combo causes many more problems (and potential problems) than the earlier editions heavier relaince on the good judgment of the DM and players. If you read my posts in this thread carefully, you'll see that I don't really think the CR system is inherently bad, just that I don't like it, and it doesn't work particularly well for my group.

A far cry from demonizing, IMHO...


----------



## Fat Daddy

*Silver Moon Sums it Up!!*



			
				Silver Moon said:
			
		

> Ah, back to my soap box.....
> 
> It's ALL D&D to Me!   OD&D, AD&D 1E, 2E, 3E, 3.5E, 4E, 8.25E, it doesn't matter!  The speciific rule systems are just the game mechanics.  Which system is better is merely a matter of personal preference and choice of gaming style.
> 
> _The soul of the game is this:_
> A DM who wants to be a storyteller/narrator and a table filled with players who have above-average intelligence, overactive imaginations and a desire for everybody to have fun.



Well there I was, all set to read through the pages of responses when Silver Moon summed up my feelings perfectly in the first reply.  I agree with Silver Moon whole-heartedly.  The 'Soul of D&D' is a group of folks who want to get together and have fun playing the game (whatever the current incarnation happens to be).


----------



## Numion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> By "viedo game feel" I mean that CR and WBL sets up an atmosphere of "you cannot confront the end of level boss until you have the red key and the BFG9000".




The first D&D adventure I ever saw was the small keep in the Red Box D&D. It included a door that didn't open unless you were high enough a level, because the harpies on the other side would kill lower level PCs.

I've never seen that level of player coddling and videogameyness in 3E 

Just saying .. that was the first adventure I and most of my friends played when we began our role playing careers. Way to set a standard.


----------



## mhacdebhandia

Zaruthustran said:
			
		

> Huh? What else could it possibly be?
> 
> I listened to Tim Schafer talk at the GDC about game and character design, which is where I first heard the claim "all games are wish fulfillment." I think to be clear, all *roleplaying* games are wish fulfillment. Sudoko, crossword puzzles, and most board games are mental exercises.
> 
> But that game where you get to be a big barbarian, crush your enemies, drive them before you, and hear the lamentations of their women? Totally wish fulfillment.
> 
> There's a reason D&D is called a FANTASY role playing game. Playing it allows the players to enact their fantasies.



Simple fact: My characters are not a reflection of my fantasies, power or otherwise.

So does that mean I'm not roleplaying? FFS. :eyeroll: _Et cetera_.

The characters I play are people designed by me to be interesting protagonists in a story that evolves naturally from events in play. I enjoy playing them not because I identify with, or want to be, those people, but because I find the experience of playing them through their lives and seeing them succeed or fail at their goals interesting and entertaining.

I think lots and lots of people - perhaps the majority, perhaps not - roleplay wish-fulfilment characters. But I do not, and I know other people who don't either.

I don't identify with novel characters, either. So maybe I'm just weird; I'm certainly prepared to accept that I'm in the minority.

But roleplaying != wish-fulfillment.


----------



## Silver Moon

Fat Daddy said:
			
		

> Well there I was, all set to read through the pages of responses when Silver Moon summed up my feelings perfectly in the first reply.  I agree with Silver Moon whole-heartedly.  The 'Soul of D&D' is a group of folks who want to get together and have fun playing the game (whatever the current incarnation happens to be).



Thank you Fat Daddy!     I began that post with  "Back to my soap box..." because over on the Dragonsfoot.org message board (a site dedicated to the out-of-print editions of D&D) they once had an "Edition Wars" forum and I would always harp in with what I put in the post.  It's All D&D to Me!    

Case-in-point, one of the best modules that our weekly group has played in years was "Beast of Burden" from Dungeon #100.  It was a 3E module that I ran for my 1E group and it worked great.


----------



## diaglo

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> As Henry pointed out, I wasn't saying that the older editions weren't fun (obviously, they were), just that they were poorly designed out of the box to deliver that fun, as shown by the near-nessecesity of house rules (which is shown by evidence drawn mostly from these boards -- Gary Gygax himself did not play with the rules out of the box). They relied instead upon the people putting them together inventing fun themselves. Like turning a cardboard box into a toy, it's something that can be a lot of fun and very rewarding, but a cardboard box is a poorly designed toy.




i'll just say in my opinion that your opinion is bologna and agree to disagree with you.


----------



## JRRNeiklot

Yep.  In fact, barring double damage on a nat 20, I can't think of a single house rule we used in 1e.  Not so with newer editions.  We may not have used ALL the rules, but we didn't change any of the existing ones.


----------



## Henry

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Yep.  In fact, barring double damage on a nat 20, I can't think of a single house rule we used in 1e.  Not so with newer editions.  We may not have used ALL the rules, but we didn't change any of the existing ones.




That's the kind of "house rules" I was referring to earlier - dropping weapon vs. armor class, dropping grappling and overbearing, using a different init system, etc. For your 1E games, for example, did you use the init system in the 1E DMG, or a more simplified version a la the 2E init sytem, or like Gary did, just use a 1d10 + dex and casting time mods?

For our games, for instance, we used a 1d10, and used the weapon speed or cast time mod to represent the FASTEST time we could go, rather than as the mod. For instance, if you used a dagger, you could indeed go on a 1 or 2 if you rolled it (subtracting dex mod). If you used a fireball and rolled a 1, and had an 18 DEX, you STILL couldn't go before a "3". And if you used a two-handed sword, you were GOING to go on 10, no matter your roll.  It worked pretty well for us, and kept from having to reconcile what a "17" meant in a round with only 10 segments.


----------



## MoogleEmpMog

Thurbane said:
			
		

> By "viedo game feel" I mean that CR and WBL sets up an atmosphere of "you cannot confront the end of level boss until you have the red key and the BFG9000".
> 
> Again I stress, this is just my personal gut feeling, rather than fact.




Well, that's more of a First Person Shooter feel than a generic Video Game feel.  

Actually, I can't think of any video game I've ever played that didn't allow you to proceed until you had a certain weapon, with the exception of games like Metroid where the weapons double as adventuring tools/keys.

Seriously, what type of video games are you referring to?  Most single player games don't have any kind of encounter balance, certainly not enforced; it's quite easy to get near the end of most action and adventure games and realize, for example, that you don't have enough ammo left to kill the final boss without resorting to the knife/boot/chainsaw/other default melee weapon that doesn't work on bosses unless you're a gaming god.

By contrast, in well over a decade, I've played relatively few tabletop RPGs where the GM allowed the players to get TPK'd because they were too liberal with their ammunition/spells/whatever in earlier encounters.


----------



## diaglo

Henry said:
			
		

> That's the kind of "house rules" I was referring to earlier...




i haven't played a newer edition campaign sans house rules.

edit: or esp errata. the newer edition is full of errata


----------



## Umbran

diaglo said:
			
		

> edit: or esp errata. the newer edition is full of errata




Yes, but the older editions are full of things that should have had errata, but didn't.  So in one case we have to incorporate changes from separate documents, and in the other we play with rules that don't quite work as well as they ought.  Six of one, half dozen of the other...


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Yep.  In fact, barring double damage on a nat 20, I can't think of a single house rule we used in 1e.  Not so with newer editions.  We may not have used ALL the rules, but we didn't change any of the existing ones.




In only a few corner cases would I make a distinction between dropping a rule and making a houserule.  Mostly that would apply to esoteric isolated systems that live in the DMG, and were intended as "helpful advice" to the DM.


----------



## BroccoliRage

"Vanilla monsters?"

I've beat the urine out of 20th level characters using goblins, kolbolds, and quicklings. Using AD&D. I've had players completely baffled by invisible stalkers, ghosts, and dopplegangers. I've made 25th level AD&D characters think twice about charging an Orc encampment. People have scractched their heads when I've broken out of stereotypes and sent goblins armed with stolen powder kegs marauding. Any moster can be interesting and surprising if you're inventive. You don't really need all those templates and whatnot. All you have to do is let your imagination run wild.

There are no vanilla monsters, only vanilla DM's.


----------



## Kormydigar

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> "Vanilla monsters?"
> 
> There are no vanilla monsters, only vanilla DM's.



QFT


----------



## BroccoliRage

Thanks, Kormy.

That, however, is not a condemnation of 3e. It's a condemnation of an attitude that many DM's, regardless of edition, are guilty of. Even myself at times.


----------



## Kormydigar

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> Thanks, Kormy.
> 
> That, however, is not a condemnation of 3e. It's a condemnation of an attitude that many DM's, regardless of edition, are guilty of. Even myself at times.




Absolutely. Vanilla DM's have plagued every edition of the game from OD&D on up. We all slip up and fall short of our best efforts sometimes.


----------



## JRRNeiklot

Henry said:
			
		

> That's the kind of "house rules" I was referring to earlier - dropping weapon vs. armor class, dropping grappling and overbearing, using a different init system, etc. For your 1E games, for example, did you use the init system in the 1E DMG, or a more simplified version a la the 2E init sytem, or like Gary did, just use a 1d10 + dex and casting time mods?
> 
> For our games, for instance, we used a 1d10, and used the weapon speed or cast time mod to represent the FASTEST time we could go, rather than as the mod. For instance, if you used a dagger, you could indeed go on a 1 or 2 if you rolled it (subtracting dex mod). If you used a fireball and rolled a 1, and had an 18 DEX, you STILL couldn't go before a "3". And if you used a two-handed sword, you were GOING to go on 10, no matter your roll.  It worked pretty well for us, and kept from having to reconcile what a "17" meant in a round with only 10 segments.




1d10 (or d6) can't remember which + ct and weapon speed.  We used weapon vs armour type, punching and wrestling, etc.  About the only thing we didn't use by the book was the weapon vs armor class table, surprise, and I suppose the init system.

So, I stand corrected, we did change at least one rule (init), but we hardly had 30 pages of house rules as I've seen some people claim.  I can't see how anyone would go to that much trouble, I'd just find a different game that suited my tastes better.  Though with 3e, I've changed a crapload of stuff, but only because I can't find anyone who will play AD&D.  So I change 3e until it's almost 1e and sneak it by.


----------



## Henry

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> So, I stand corrected, we did change at least one rule (init), but we hardly had 30 pages of house rules as I've seen some people claim.  I can't see how anyone would go to that much trouble, I'd just find a different game that suited my tastes better.  Though with 3e, I've changed a crapload of stuff, but only because I can't find anyone who will play AD&D.  So I change 3e until it's almost 1e and sneak it by.




We went the other way, ourselves. In AD&D, we had approx. 1 page worth of house rules (things from Crossbow damage improvements, to init, to nonweapon prof's, etc.) 

In 3E, we've had three. House rules, that is. (1) I changed the orb spells to evocations (and thereby changed them to Spell Resistance: Yes), (2) I eliminated a feat (double wand wielder, because it tramped on the Cannith Wand Adept's turf), and (3) I changed the way that Amulet of Mighty Fists worked to allow Monks to put weapon enhancements into it, as well.


----------



## Numion

Henry said:
			
		

> In 3E, we've had three. House rules, that is. (1) I changed the orb spells to evocations (and thereby changed them to Spell Resistance: Yes), (2) I eliminated a feat (double wand wielder, because it tramped on the Cannith Wand Adept's turf), and (3) I changed the way that Amulet of Mighty Fists worked to allow Monks to put weapon enhancements into it, as well.




Those are all splatbook houserules though.


----------



## Thurbane

MoogleEmpMog said:
			
		

> Actually, I can't think of any video game I've ever played that didn't allow you to proceed until you had a certain weapon, with the exception of games like Metroid where the weapons double as adventuring tools/keys.
> 
> Seriously, what type of video games are you referring to?



More along the line of early adventure games, where you needed certain items before you could proceed past certain checkpoints or levels. The BFG9000 reference may have been a little out of place - but it was mainly in reference to the WBL system where you must have X amount of magical fireworks before you can defeat X CR creature.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Expansions may be relevant to the original topic of the thread, but bringing them into the conversation tends to make all comparisons between editions a matter of apples and oranges.


----------



## Thurbane

I really don't think anyone can make a unilateral statement that 1E or 2E required more house rules to be "playable" than 3E or 3.5E. IMHO, all of these editions are completely playable "as is" out of the box. It is simply a matter of customizing to personal/group taste.

Heck, even the unwieldly unarmed combat system from 1E was playable, if clumsy.

Quick 3.X question: the rules are pretty airtight, yet I see no rules on what happens to a character who goes without enough sleep, have I just missed the relevant rules? Presumably it involves fatigue, but I can't find a rule on how little sleep = what penalty.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I really don't think anyone can make a unilateral statement that 1E or 2E required more house rules to be "playable" than 3E or 3.5E. IMHO, all of these editions are completely playable "as is" out of the box. It is simply a matter of customizing to personal/group taste.




That's not entirely true of AD&D, as two sets of rules: surprise and initiative, had cases where the rules didn't properly cover what occurred.

(If a bowman shoots at a wizard casting a spell, is the spell disrupted? If a 3rd-level monk rolls for surprise, how many segments is he surprised?)



> Quick 3.X question: the rules are pretty airtight, yet I see no rules on what happens to a character who goes without enough sleep, have I just missed the relevant rules? Presumably it involves fatigue, but I can't find a rule on how little sleep = what penalty.




Funnily enough, there isn't a rule. I've looked for it in the past. Forced Marching comes closest.

Cheers!


----------



## der_kluge

Henry said:
			
		

> We went the other way, ourselves. In AD&D, we had approx. 1 page worth of house rules (things from Crossbow damage improvements, to init, to nonweapon prof's, etc.)
> 
> In 3E, we've had three. House rules, that is. (1) I changed the orb spells to evocations (and thereby changed them to Spell Resistance: Yes), (2) I eliminated a feat (double wand wielder, because it tramped on the Cannith Wand Adept's turf), and (3) I changed the way that Amulet of Mighty Fists worked to allow Monks to put weapon enhancements into it, as well.





I can't recall ever having that many house rules in 2nd edition.  No racial level limits is about the only thing I can even think of. 

I had a lot of house rules in my first 3.5 campaign, but I've since paired them down to very few. I think 3rd edition tends to create more house rules because there are just more rules in general. So, it only makes sense.  And balance is more integral to 3rd edition. It tended to be glossed over a bit more in 2nd edition. So, it's a little easier to make little adjustments here and there in 3rd edition.


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> That's not entirely true of AD&D, as two sets of rules: surprise and initiative, had cases where the rules didn't properly cover what occurred.
> 
> (If a bowman shoots at a wizard casting a spell, is the spell disrupted?



If he hit, then yes, the spell is disrupted.

As far as I recall, any damage that occurs in the round before the casting of the spell disrupted it, rather than the current system that spells can only be disrupted if the caster is actually in the process of casting.


> If a 3rd-level monk rolls for surprise, how many segments is he surprised?)



I haven't cracked open my 1E PHB in a few years, but from memory the monk surprise ability had no effect on length of surprise, but only the initial chance.

I'll admit things got fiddly when you had to compare non-standard surprise/to be surprised chances, but it was more a matter of applying the right equation rather than house rules as such.


> Funnily enough, there isn't a rule. I've looked for it in the past. Forced Marching comes closest.
> 
> Cheers!



Pretty much what I figured.

Maybe some sort of system involving a Fort save that must be made at an increasing DC for every hour of missed sleep? But that's something for another thread.


----------



## JRRNeiklot

MerricB said:
			
		

> That's not entirely true of AD&D, as two sets of rules: surprise and initiative, had cases where the rules didn't properly cover what occurred.
> 
> (If a bowman shoots at a wizard casting a spell, is the spell disrupted? If a 3rd-level monk rolls for surprise, how many segments is he surprised?)
> 
> 
> 
> Funnily enough, there isn't a rule. I've looked for it in the past. Forced Marching comes closest.
> 
> Cheers!




The spell would be disrupted if the wizard even uses his dex bonus to dodge the arrow.  As for the monk, it depends on the difference between their surprise checks, which gets a bit confusing since monks have a percentage chance of being surprised vs a d6 roll for everyone else.  And the monk would be subject to an entire complement of attacks per segment he is surprised, in the unlikely event someone managed to surprise him at all.


----------



## Thurbane

It's also interesting that many of the detractors of pre-3.X editions seem to focus purely on 1E; 2E actually streamlined a lot of the rules from 1E, while still managing not to be too vastly different. Well, less diffent than the jump between 2E and 3E, anyway. It was a cinch to convert a 1E character to 2E; converting from either of those to 3.X is quite a bit fiddling and work.

As with 3.X, the main pitfalls of 2E seemed to occur from an endless series of splat books, up to and including the "2.5E" Players Options books - the precursors to 3E.


----------



## Hussar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> It's also interesting that many of the detractors of pre-3.X editions seem to focus purely on 1E; 2E actually streamlined a lot of the rules from 1E, while still managing not to be too vastly different. Well, less diffent than the jump between 2E and 3E, anyway. It was a cinch to convert a 1E character to 2E; converting from either of those to 3.X is quite a bit fiddling and work.
> 
> As with 3.X, the main pitfalls of 2E seemed to occur from an endless series of splat books, up to and including the "2.5E" Players Options books - the precursors to 3E.




Well, while those in the 3e and 1e camp might argue with eachother over their games, they can mostly agree that 2e was the worst of both schools.  It combined poorly worded mechanics from 1e with endless splatbooks that were also poorly worded.

Heck, you can't even play certain classes in the 2e PHB without the DM writing it for you.  The specialist priest basically needs to be created whole cloth before it can be played.  So, you wind up with clerics from the PHB, nerfed clerics in the Complete Priest and ungodly overpowered clerics in Faiths and Avatars and Uber-Godboys in the Player's Options books.

I remember playing a priest of Kossuth, using a sword, and chucking fireballs while wearing chainmail all the while using Druid xp tables.  Oh yeah, balance?  Never heard of it.  

1e suffered, IMO, from being the prototype.  While some people may like Gygax's style, it was still very dense and confusing.  One should not use neologisms in a game rule book without actually defining them somewhere in the book.    And, again IMO, the power creep that got into 1e was astonishing.  I played a 1e paladin using the cavalier rules up to high levels.  Basically, because of those rules, I was godlike - 18/00 str, 18 Dex, Con, Cha, all because I was gaining bonuses to each stat every level and, using the UA character creation rules, I got 9d6 for Cha, down to 5d6 for Dex.  Now THAT was munchkin.

(Sue me, I was like 12)


----------



## Henry

Hussar said:
			
		

> ...While some people may like Gygax's style, it was still very dense and confusing.  One should not use neologisms in a game rule book without actually defining them somewhere in the book.




I've seen this mentioned in this thread before, but could you possibly give me an example or two? I really don't recall them; any word I remember Gary using was not a new term, but mostly some arcane term that could be found by perusing an Ovford English Dictionary. 




> And, again IMO, the power creep that got into 1e was astonishing.  I played a 1e paladin using the cavalier rules up to high levels.  Basically, because of those rules, I was godlike - 18/00 str, 18 Dex, Con, Cha, all because I was gaining bonuses to each stat every level and, using the UA character creation rules, I got 9d6 for Cha, down to 5d6 for Dex.  Now THAT was munchkin.
> 
> (Sue me, I was like 12)




Diaglo often has said that UA was "written for Gary Gygax's powergaming scions."  I'll admit, those Method VI (or whatever) rules were VERY over the top, and the cavalier's stat improvement when used in conjunction with them were obscene. The cavalier's stat improvement was balanced by a roleplaying penalty that many times in our groups were never applied to the Cavalier or Paladin properly. If they were roleplayed as uncompromisingly chivalrous as the rules insisted, they probably NEVER would have made it to high enough level where the stat increases would matter!


----------



## Maggan

Henry said:
			
		

> I've seen this mentioned in this thread before, but could you possibly give me an example or two? I really don't recall them; any word I remember Gary using was not a new term, but mostly some arcane term that could be found by perusing an Ovford English Dictionary.




A fun read:

http://phrontistery.info/disq6.html

Cheers!

/M


----------



## Henry

Maggan said:
			
		

> A fun read:
> 
> http://phrontistery.info/disq6.html
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> /M




Maybe I'm missing something, but none of these are undefined neologisms. Magocracy was defined in the book, in the same line on the page, for instance, and fauchard, bec de corbin, lycanthropy, etc. were all defined elsewhere, and used the same meanings.

EDIT: The only one I can see so far is *libram*, which isn't an actual word prior to D&D, as far as I can tell, and which is only inferred as being a book given its description in the DMG.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> If he hit, then yes, the spell is disrupted.
> 
> As far as I recall, any damage that occurs in the round before the casting of the spell disrupted it, rather than the current system that spells can only be disrupted if the caster is actually in the process of casting.




Your answer is incorrect. Please reference the rules and try again.



> I haven't cracked open my 1E PHB in a few years, but from memory the monk surprise ability had no effect on length of surprise, but only the initial chance.




Ah, but the initial chance is also the length of surprise. You don't roll twice.

Seriously, don't try to answer these questions from memory. I have the AD&D books open in front of me, and the answers aren't obvious.

Cheers!


----------



## WizarDru

Thurbane said:
			
		

> It's also interesting that many of the detractors of pre-3.X editions seem to focus purely on 1E; 2E actually streamlined a lot of the rules from 1E, while still managing not to be too vastly different.




Many of the people who comment on said previous editions, detractors or otherwise, do so because many players simply dropped the game with the advent of 2E, so they can't comment from experience.  It's my general impression that 1E was during D&D's golden age (when it was part of the popular zeitgeist), 2e lost some of the core audience and then 3E reclaimed many lapsed or departed gamers as well as making some new ones.

It's not that 2E is better or worse...it's that many gamers decided to skip it back then and don't have as much experience with the system to claim it worked one way or another.  Throughout the entire 2E run, for example, I was using GURPS as my core system.  I left during AD&D and didn't return to D&D for 14 years.  I didn't stop gaming, I just stopped playing D&D.  The same is true of ALL of my players, FWIW.


----------



## Hussar

Refresh my memory, but where was dweomer defined?

Perhaps I am overstating the case a bit, but, then again, forcing players to consult the OED in order to play is perhaps not something that is a good idea.  Take even something as simple as Somatic.  When you're twelve years old, trying to figure out what the heck that meant was something of a task.

And, yeah, Henry, I probably violated the Cavalier's code nine ways from Sunday.  

However, the point still remains, can you show me a single book from WOTC that has grossly violated game balance anywhere near to the level that Unearthed Arcana did?  Hrm, let's give fighters +3 to hit and damage and an extra attack, all at first level.


----------



## Maggan

Henry said:
			
		

> EDIT: The only one I can see so far is *libram*, which isn't an actual word prior to D&D, as far as I can tell, and which is only inferred as being a book given its description in the DMG.




Not being up to total speed with a strange foreing language like english, I figured libram and dweomer were identified as new words in the article.

Could very well misread it though. It's friday and it's been a taxing week.   

EDIT: It is still a fun read, that article.

/M


----------



## Henry

Hussar said:
			
		

> And, yeah, Henry, I probably violated the Cavalier's code nine ways from Sunday.




*fondly* Ahhh, didn't we all? 



> However, the point still remains, can you show me a single book from WOTC that has grossly violated game balance anywhere near to the level that Unearthed Arcana did?  Hrm, let's give fighters +3 to hit and damage and an extra attack, all at first level.




To be fair, they needed that one - I equate that to be similar to the high level fighter feats in Player's Handbook II, because compared to Rangers, Paladins, et. al. even before the UA, they were looking pretty weak compared to their kin - although there were fewer of their kin, if the ability score requirements were strictly followed, but the big shift in the early 80's was, you get to play the class and race you WANT to play, rather than what the dice dealt you.


----------



## SmokestackJones

_If you have nothing constructive to say, adding snarky quotes isn't going to help.
-Pielorinho_


----------



## MerricB

HenryTo be fair said:
			
		

> But it's quite different, because that +3 to hit and damage kicked in at level 1, when Fighters were already the strongest class. Fighters needed a boost at high levels, not at 1st.
> 
> Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> It's also interesting that many of the detractors of pre-3.X editions seem to focus purely on 1E; 2E actually streamlined a lot of the rules from 1E, while still managing not to be too vastly different... As with 3.X, the main pitfalls of 2E seemed to occur from an endless series of splat books, up to and including the "2.5E" Players Options books - the precursors to 3E.




Hmm. You'd be hard-pressed to really compare the balance of the supplements to 3e with the balance of the supplements to 2e. The 2e supplements show, if anything, why the balance considerations in 3e and the unified system needed to be made.

In many cases, the balance of a 2e supplement showed no relation to the base game. The Complete Priest's Handbook is generally the example I use of this: the CPH provided a new system that made clerics substantially _weaker_ than that in the Player's Handbook. It even admits that in the book. Huh?

The big improvements 2e made to the system did come in the core rules. I'm generally admiring of them, especially what they did to initiative and surprise. However, the framework wasn't really made for the options then layered onto it in the supplements.

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> Seriously, don't try to answer these questions from memory. I have the AD&D books open in front of me, and the answers aren't obvious.



I'll concede that point, I haven't cracked open the 1E rulebooks in well over a decade - I must be getting mixed up with some of the 2E rules.

Old age will do that to you.


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> Hmm. You'd be hard-pressed to really compare the balance of the supplements to 3e with the balance of the supplements to 2e. The 2e supplements show, if anything, why the balance considerations in 3e and the unified system needed to be made.



I can see your point, but I'm afraid that even in 3.5 there are still plenty of race/class/PrC/feat combos that when drawn together from enough non-core WotC supplements, create totally unbalanced characters (I hate the term "broken", but it may be appropriate).

Simple fact is that now, as in 2E, when you layer on enough extra options for players, some will undoubtedly find a way to combine them that was never the intent of the original authors. Check out some of the Frankenstein creations lurking in the WotC Character Optimization boards.

But yes, this isn't a problem new to 3.X, it has been in D&D (and most other RPGs) for a long time.


----------



## Psion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I can see your point, but I'm afraid that even in 3.5 there are still plenty of race/class/PrC/feat combos that when drawn together from enough non-core WotC supplements, create totally unbalanced characters (I hate the term "broken", but it may be appropriate).




Yep.

When you have a rules set as big as that of official D&D products, it's sort of unavoidable. That's why I say DMs need to "take charge of [their] game"!


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I can see your point, but I'm afraid that even in 3.5 there are still plenty of race/class/PrC/feat combos that when drawn together from enough non-core WotC supplements, create totally unbalanced characters (I hate the term "broken", but it may be appropriate).




There is a striking difference, however. In 3e, feats and abilities from many different sources can combine in frightening ways, but the supplements by themselves are mostly balanced against the basic game. In 2e, a single supplement isn't necessarily balanced against the basic game!

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> There is a striking difference, however. In 3e, feats and abilities from many different sources can combine in frightening ways, but the supplements by themselves are mostly balanced against the basic game. In 2e, a single supplement isn't necessarily balanced against the basic game!
> 
> Cheers!



Really? Could you give an example, as I can't readily think of a supplement that didn't at least attempt to be balanced against the basic game...although Complete Psionics Handbook came close


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Really? Could you give an example, as I can't readily think of a supplement that didn't at least attempt to be balanced against the basic game...although Complete Psionics Handbook came close




Complete Priest's Handbook. (It even says so in the book). I know a lot of people are suspicious of the Complete Elf as well. 

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

I think that saying CPH wasn't balanced against the game is a little extreme. Yes, it had the disclaimer that the specialty priests in there wouldn't be as outright powerful as the PHB cleric, but I don't think that makes the book inherently unbalanced, as such.

I actually found this to be one of my favorite supplements - it meant those "plain vanilla" clerics who all had the exact same powers and spell selection regardless of whether they worshipped the God of War or the God of Field Mice gave way to priests who had distinctive abilities based on who or what they worshipped. Actually, specialty priests are something I really miss from 2E. Unless you you take a prestige class or variant base class, all 3.X clerics are again "plain vanilla" again, with the exception of their domains.

But I digress, that's waaay offtopic for this thread.

Are the examples you give really any worse than some 3.X supplements - Divine Metamagic, Warlocks and some Psionic classes and abilities come to mind as poorly balanced against core only, IMHO.


----------



## Glyfair

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Many of the people who comment on said previous editions, detractors or otherwise, do so because many players simply dropped the game with the advent of 2E, so they can't comment from experience.




<Raises Hand>

Now, I was drifting away from D&D throughout the AD&D period (from the PHB release to 2Es release).  I was hoping that 2E would change the things that were causing me to drift from D&D, but it didn't.  There were things I liked (such as the general idea of priest's spheres), but the stuff I didn't like was either not changed, or not changed enough.  It took 3E for that to happen.


----------



## Hussar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I think that saying CPH wasn't balanced against the game is a little extreme. Yes, it had the disclaimer that the specialty priests in there wouldn't be as outright powerful as the PHB cleric, but I don't think that makes the book inherently unbalanced, as such.
> 
> I actually found this to be one of my favorite supplements - it meant those "plain vanilla" clerics who all had the exact same powers and spell selection regardless of whether they worshipped the God of War or the God of Field Mice gave way to priests who had distinctive abilities based on who or what they worshipped. Actually, specialty priests are something I really miss from 2E. Unless you you take a prestige class or variant base class, all 3.X clerics are again "plain vanilla" again, with the exception of their domains.
> 
> But I digress, that's waaay offtopic for this thread.
> 
> Are the examples you give really any worse than some 3.X supplements - Divine Metamagic, Warlocks and some Psionic classes and abilities come to mind as poorly balanced against core only, IMHO.




Add to Complete Priests, Faiths and Avatars.  An FR supplement that allowed priests to wear armor, use swords and cast fireball as a priest spell, while being able to summon fire elementals at 5th level that never disobey the summoner (Priest of Kossuth).  How's that for unbalanced?

The Complete Priest took a reasonably balanced class, the cleric, and nerfed it into the ground.  Want to wear armor and use a mace?  Ok, you get two major and three minor spheres.  Wooo.  

Complete Ranger allowed me to create the Beastmaster - within a level or so I had an entire ARMY of animals trotting around with me.  The Complete Wizard gave witches a death ability with no save as well as a dominate monster ability with unlimited uses and no save.  All the witch had to do was point at something.

That's off the top of my head.

Compared to kits like that, nothing in 3e comes even close from any single book.  Sure, you have Hulking Hurlers, Pun Pun and whatnot, but, they require several books and some pretty crooked interpretations of the rules.  The number of classes and PrC's that are truly broken can be counted in single digit numbers.  Not bad considering there are over a thousand PrC's from WOTC alone.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Hussar said:
			
		

> there are over a thousand PrC's from WOTC alone.




And this perfectly encapsulates one of the three main reasons that people cite to explain why they don't play 3e.


----------



## Ranes

Wow! People don't play 3.x because of the number of PrCs? I don't get it. I mean, I don't care much for PrCs but I also just disallow them, as is my perogative. Over a thousand, eh?

"We encourage you, as the DM, to tightly limit the prestige classes available in your campaign." DMG 3.5, p176


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Nah, it's because of the sheer volume of "official" material and the insane expense incurred in obtaining it.

(I do understand the counterarguments against that, and I realise the vanilla d20 fantasy system is arguably free; don't shoot the messenger.)


----------



## Numion

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> And this perfectly encapsulates one of the three main reasons that people cite to explain why they don't play 3e.




Doesn't sound plausible. I've played in Core Only - No PrCs campaign, and it worked like a charm. Why would anyone feel the need to buy _everything_ from WotC?

And care to explain the other two 'main' reasons? Wait, lemme guess, one is 100000000s of feats? Is the third .. spells? Monsters? Magic items? Core classes? What?


----------



## WizarDru

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Nah, it's because of the sheer volume of "official" material and the insane expense incurred in obtaining it.
> 
> (I do understand the counterarguments against that, and I realise the vanilla d20 fantasy system is arguably free; don't shoot the messenger.)




I'm not sure what the message is, exactly.  Are you saying that people are listing 'too much optional material' as a reason they don't want to play D&D?  I didn't know stuff like Oriental Adventures and Magic of Incarnum were driving people away from the game system.


----------



## brehobit

FireLance said:
			
		

> You know what I say to that:
> 
> *It's Still D&D To Me*
> (with apologies to Billy Joel)
> ​



Wow, that was amazing....  Best laugh in days....

Mark


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Numion said:
			
		

> And care to explain the other two 'main' reasons? Wait, lemme guess, one is 100000000s of feats? Is the third .. spells? Monsters? Magic items? Core classes? What?




Well, feats and other stacking modifiers, the amount of prep time it takes to create a character or NPC in general; sometimes this is linked with irritation about the amount of page space occupied by statblocks.

The third is AoO's and/or the amount of time it takes to resolve a combat -- same objection, imo.


----------



## Crothian

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Well, feats and other stacking modifiers, the amount of prep time it takes to create a character or NPC in general; sometimes this is linked with irritation about the amount of page space occupied by statblocks.
> 
> The third is AoO's and/or the amount of time it takes to resolve a combat -- same objection, imo.




I would think that among the top 3 reasons people don't play D&D is becasue they don't like it. They don't like class based syatems.  And they don't like fantasy games.  I think your reasons are why D&D fans don't play it.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Crothian said:
			
		

> I would think that among the top 3 reasons people don't play D&D is becasue they don't like it. They don't like class based syatems.  And they don't like fantasy games.  I think your reasons are why D&D fans don't play it.




Eh?  I thought I was fairly clear that I was giving the reasons people don't play 3.x.


----------



## Crothian

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Eh?  I thought I was fairly clear that I was giving the reasons people don't play 3.x.




You were but you never said who those people are.  My mom doesn't play, but not for any of your reasons.  I think yopur reasons fit for why D&D fans don't play 3.5 not why people in general don't play it.


----------



## mmadsen

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> What is the core appeal of the game? The thing that people have fun doing, the cause of it's existence and it's reason for being and your reason for playing are.....what?



For me, the soul of D&D was always its sense of mystery.  The game was about figuring out what was going on -- _What are those things?  What's behind that door?  How do we get out of here?_ -- and finding clever solutions to life-and-death situations.


			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> And how does the most recent edition/trends/design of the game violate that? How does what D&D is becoming/has become/became before pervert what you think this spirit and soul of D&D is?



The more concrete and specific the rules are, the more rules you need, and the more rules you have, the more the players and DM must consult the rules (before and during the game itself), etc.

Further, the more source material there is, the less room there is for mystery and creativity.  It's harder, not easier, to run a campaign in a "nailed down" setting with many details.


			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Obviously, many people feel that D&D's trends now are beating and deflowering their precious game, but what would you rather have WotC publish? What new things would satisfy what you need?



The conflict is that we want a sense of mystery -- like when we first started playing the game -- but we simultaneously want all the answers.  We're like children before Christmas, and we routinely ruin the surprise.  Hardcore gamers are on a treadmill, studying all the rules, buying new supplements, digesting all their possibilities, then buying newer supplements, and so on.


----------



## Thurbane

Ranes said:
			
		

> Wow! People don't play 3.x because of the number of PrCs? I don't get it. I mean, I don't care much for PrCs but I also just disallow them, as is my perogative. Over a thousand, eh?
> 
> "We encourage you, as the DM, to tightly limit the prestige classes available in your campaign." DMG 3.5, p176





			
				Numion said:
			
		

> Doesn't sound plausible. I've played in Core Only - No PrCs campaign, and it worked like a charm. Why would anyone feel the need to buy _everything_ from WotC?



Yes, except that a certain mindset of player will insist of their DM that if it's in an official WotC book, the DM *must* include it in his campaign as a player option. If the DM politely (or not so politely) declines, the players then throw a hissy fit and rant about what an unfair DM they have. You see posts about it here all the time, and even moreso on the WotC forums.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Crothian said:
			
		

> You were but you never said who those people are.  My mom doesn't play, but not for any of your reasons.  I think yopur reasons fit for why D&D fans don't play 3.5 not why people in general don't play it.




Why, thank you for pointing out that possible confusion, Crothian!


----------



## Crothian

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Yes, except that a certain mindset of player will insist of their DM that if it's in an official WotC book, the DM *must* include it in his campaign as a player option. If the DM politely (or not so politely) declines, the players then throw a hissy fit and rant about what an unfair DM they have. You see posts about it here all the time, and even moreso on the WotC forums.




That is why there are more players then DMs.  DMs have an easier time of kicking out a player and replacing him then a Player has of replacing the DM.


----------



## Numion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Yes, except that a certain mindset of player will insist of their DM that if it's in an official WotC book, the DM *must* include it in his campaign as a player option. If the DM politely (or not so politely) declines, the players then throw a hissy fit and rant about what an unfair DM they have. You see posts about it here all the time, and even moreso on the WotC forums.




Maybe I have a faulty memory, but threads such as those are not something I see "here all the time". Sure, I see threads about players asking why their DM thinks something is overpowered or something like that. But I don't recall ever seeing a thread in which a player thinks the DM _must allow everything_ from WotC. Couple of times I've seen hissy fits, but considering the traffic this site sees, it's no surprise. I might very well be wrong, though.

In any case, it seems to be such a minority that I have a hard time believing that to be the main reason people don't play D&D. If you go outside of D&D boards the reasons are altogether something else - hit points, levels, mandatory BAB progression, etc.. 

Add to this the fact that there's the rule 0 printed in the books.


----------



## RFisher

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Compare to previous editions where the Players were specifically prevented from learning the rules of the game, and in which the DMG advised the DM to punish the Players' PCs if they read the DMG. Where large swaths of rules were contained in said DMG, and the Players had to rely on the DM knowing them in order for them to be enacted, unable to tell if the DM was ad hocing or if they were going by RAW.
> 
> Regardless of how you or I played, previous editions were definately less Player friendly as written.



Let me remind you that there were editions of the game prior to 2000 that did _not_ have "Advanced" in their name. (^_^)


			
				FireLance said:
			
		

> On the other hand, the underlying philosophy of 3e seems to be "This is what should happen." Players are given more avenues in the rules to acquire information - Knowledge checks to identify monsters and their abilities, Search checks to find traps, Spellcraft checks to learn about magical effects, etc. DMs, if not players, have a better idea of what individual encounters are supposed to do, whether the players have a good, fair or almost no reasonable chance of defeating it in a straight fight, and how the players are expected to overcome it (if at all). Players are expected to overcome challenges with their characters' abilities instead of their own creativity and persuasiveness. The net effect is to foster an attitude of increased confidence (or recklessness, YMMV) and propensity for action on the part of the players.



Perhaps you've managed to capture why I don't prefer 3e, because I don't want to play the game you've just described.


			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> They relied instead upon the people putting them together inventing fun themselves.



Even if I were to concede this point, I don't think it is a bad thing!


			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> And since the quality of older editions was largely dependant upon how good of a DM you happened to land (because the rules themselves were unreliable)



My experience is that the quality of the DM matter just as much with any edition. I haven't witnessed 3e making anyone a better DM than they were with any other system.


			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Perhaps I am overstating the case a bit, but, then again, forcing players to consult the OED in order to play is perhaps not something that is a good idea.  Take even something as simple as Somatic.  When you're twelve years old, trying to figure out what the heck that meant was something of a task.



On the one hand, I can almost agree with this. My favorite edition of D&D did a pretty good job of explaining everything you needed to know without sending you to a dictionary or the library.

On the other hand, it sometimes seems ridiculous what they bother to provide glosses for. (In particular I'm thinking about B4 here.) An author should expect their readers to be able to use a dictionary.

Gygax's style may have been a bit of an extreme, but it's nothing that a 12yo with access to a dictionary & a library couldn't manage. (Heaven forbid a book actually encourage him to go to a parent or other respected adult to discuss the meaning of the words.)


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

RFisher said:
			
		

> Gygax's style may have been a bit of an extreme, but it's nothing that a 12yo with access to a dictionary & a library couldn't manage. (Heaven forbid a book actually encourage him to go to a parent or other respected adult to discuss the meaning of the words.)




A bit of a digression, but using obscure words in really novel ways has its downsides.

I have run across more than one person recounting the humorous nature of their first encounter with a Lich.

DM: "...and across the room...is a Lich!"
Player: "Hmm.  I walk over and search it."
DM: "Uh.  It casts Finger of Death on you."
Player: "The lich?"
DM: "Yes!  The Lich."
Player: "So the body is moving?"
DM: "It is a Lich!  Yes."
Player: "And it is moving?  What didn't you say that before?"
DM: "It is a Lich!"


----------



## Thurbane

Numion said:
			
		

> Maybe I have a faulty memory, but threads such as those are not something I see "here all the time". Sure, I see threads about players asking why their DM thinks something is overpowered or something like that. But I don't recall ever seeing a thread in which a player thinks the DM _must allow everything_ from WotC. Couple of times I've seen hissy fits, but considering the traffic this site sees, it's no surprise. I might very well be wrong, though.
> 
> In any case, it seems to be such a minority that I have a hard time believing that to be the main reason people don't play D&D. If you go outside of D&D boards the reasons are altogether something else - hit points, levels, mandatory BAB progression, etc..
> 
> Add to this the fact that there's the rule 0 printed in the books.



If not here, then most definitely at the WotC forums.

I also do not agree this is the primary reason that people don't play D&D - but trust me, it happens, and quite regularly. I have seen people advised to drop out of a particular DMs game because they were told they couldn't play a particular race or class.

I fully agree with you about rule 0, as well.


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> DM: "...and across the room...is a Lich!"



There's some clumsy DMing.  Why give away that the skeleton is rotting robes is a lich?


----------



## Hussar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> If not here, then most definitely at the WotC forums.
> 
> I also do not agree this is the primary reason that people don't play D&D - but trust me, it happens, and quite regularly. I have seen people advised to drop out of a particular DMs game because they were told they couldn't play a particular race or class.
> 
> I fully agree with you about rule 0, as well.




Heh, the funny thing is, we actually have had more than a few polls on exactly this.

I once did a poll about how many people had ever seen what you are describing - players demanding this or that from a DM.  By an overwhelming majority - some twenty to one - no one had ever seen it in play.  Those who HAD seen it, had seen it from exactly one player.  This is a myth that gets promoted by the internet.

Raven Crowking did a poll some time ago about whether or not he should allow a player to play a warforged ninja in his pirates themed game.  Again, by a margin of about twenty to one, people supported RC's denial of the player.

The numbers simply do not support what you are saying Thurbane.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> I haven't witnessed 3e making anyone a better DM than they were with any other system.




I'm going to call this out specifically, because I *have* seen this happen. Over and over again. 3e is making people better at running games, and many of the more recent supplements and redesigns are headed even further in that direction. The DM's chair is no longer a coveted seat of power and authority, a throne bestowed upon you by "alpha male" status and mastery of rules in obscure tomes. It's something anyone with an inclination can be good at. And part of the reason they can be good at it is because 3e provides a very solid foundation of how a game of D&D works...the foundation can be moved and altered, but it's a very good foundation.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I'm going to call this out specifically, because I *have* seen this happen. Over and over again. 3e is making people better at running games, and many of the more recent supplements and redesigns are headed even further in that direction. The DM's chair is no longer a coveted seat of power and authority, a throne bestowed upon you by "alpha male" status and mastery of rules in obscure tomes. It's something anyone with an inclination can be good at. And part of the reason they can be good at it is because 3e provides a very solid foundation of how a game of D&D works...the foundation can be moved and altered, but it's a very good foundation.




I sympathise.  Your earlier edition DM must have been a very difficult person to get on with.

But the difference between a good DM and a poor one is down to personality, social skills and experience.  It's got nothing to do with choice of rules edition. 3.x can't magically give a poor DM the personal attributes to make him or her into a good one.  Nor do earlier editions magically make a good DM into a poor one.


----------



## FireLance

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> But the difference between a good DM and a poor one is down to personality, social skills and experience.  It's got nothing to do with choice of rules edition. 3.x can't magically give a poor DM the personal attributes to make him or her into a good one.  Nor do earlier editions magically make a good DM into a poor one.



I'd say the difference between a good DM and an *average* one is down to personality, social skills and experience.

However, a good rule set with plenty of guidelines and advice (approriate wealth, appropriate CR, etc.) can turn a poor DM into an average one. "Taking the DM out of the equation" means that almost anyone can do a decent job of running a game, when previously, only an elite few were considered good enough to do so. 

Whether you deplore the fact that a multitude of talentless hacks are now running dull and uninspired games, or you celebrate the fact that more and more people are discovering the joys of DMing then becomes entirely a matter of personal opinion.


----------



## Hussar

> But the difference between a good DM and a poor one is down to personality, social skills and experience. It's got nothing to do with choice of rules edition. 3.x can't magically give a poor DM the personal attributes to make him or her into a good one. Nor do earlier editions magically make a good DM into a poor one.




To reiterate Firelance's point.

Good rules can make a poor DM mediocre.  Mediocre is certainly good enough to keep the game going.  Poor rules make a mediocre DM poor and a poor DM absolutely attrocious simply because a mediocre DM lacks the talent to improve upon the game. 

Good DM's don't need help.  Their games are going to be good regardless of system.  If you have a good DM, the system doesn't really matter.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of DM's out there are average.  They have to be.  The majority can't be good simply because they ARE the majority.  A poorly designed system will make the majority even worse while a well designed system with lots of support will at least keep the majority average.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

FireLance said:
			
		

> However, a good rule set with plenty of guidelines and advice (approriate wealth, appropriate CR, etc.) can turn a poor DM into an average one. "Taking the DM out of the equation" means that almost anyone can do a decent job of running a game, when previously, only an elite few were considered good enough to do so.




I'm sorry, I'm afraid I simply disagree.

I agree that mechanisms like appropriate wealth, appropriate CR etc. help a DM to create an encounter which is balanced against the party -- but I think that in itself is one of the two reasons why some DMs are poor:  they worry about balanced encounters, and I think that's a mistake.  (Yes, seriously.  I'll explain in a moment.)

I think the other reason why some DMs are poor is that they try to write plots.  They create scripted series of events which the party is supposed to progress through one by one, usually in a fairly linear fashion, and when the party attempts to deviate from this scripted series of events, they try to get the plot "back on track", often by ad-libbing interventions from big monsters or powerful NPCs.

I think this is unfair to the players, because it takes away the meaningful choices which they should rightfully have.

Personally, I prefer to design an adventure environment which I think is interesting and challenging, and then just turn the players loose.  I'll tend to designate some areas as "low level", some "medium" and some "high", but that's about it.

In this style, the players have no reason at all to assume that any given encounter is balanced against them.  It's up to them to figure out what they're up against, so they have to scout effectively, pick and choose the fights they want to get involved in, and either hide from or talk their way out of the others; the players find their own preferred level of difficulty, rather than having the DM impose it on them.

There's a mirror for this approach in the old 1e-style 15-level megadungeons. The players could choose to hang around on the first dungeon level, where there are a hundred rooms full of kobolds and giant rats and easy puzzles, and where they can adopt the Rambo(TM) approach to adventure gaming if that's what suits their style.  But if they go down a few sets of stairs and hang around on level 7, that's up to them, and they can't complain when they meet the vampire.  And if they're _good_, maybe they'll manage to lure that vampire into a carefully-prepared trap involving six dozen wooden stakes and take him out!  Or maybe they'll get wiped.

And, of course, the first party doesn't get anywhere near its "appropriate wealth level" because it's picking up the occasional pouch of copper pieces and the odd arrow +1 that's all the treasure the kobolds have, while the second party gets the super-cash megaprize bonanza with choice of vorpal swords.  

I'm not advocating megadungeons necessarily, just the underlying idea.  The DM creates an interesting place to explore, and the players find their preferred level of difficulty within it -- and because there's no "plot", the players choose what happens to their characters.  The DM just hands out the rewards, or enforces the consequences.

There _is_ story in this, but it's the result of the game, not a process within it.  The players and the DM are collaborating to produce an interactive, character-driven story and none of them can tell what the resolution will be.

So anyway, what I'm saying is that tools like appropriate wealth and appropriate CR are a prop to turn a weak DM into a vanilla DM.  I think a good DM ignores appropriate wealth, CR, plots, storylines, BBEG's and all that rubbish because he hands so much control of the game back to the players that he doesn't need it.


----------



## WizarDru

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> So anyway, what I'm saying is that tools like appropriate wealth and appropriate CR are a prop to turn a weak DM into a vanilla DM.  I think a good DM ignores appropriate wealth, CR, plots, storylines, BBEG's and all that rubbish because he hands so much control of the game back to the players that he doesn't need it.




Well, most of what you discuss has absolutely nothing to do with any specific edition.  Railroading DMs were rampant under previous editions, too....and arguments with the DM over rules occured then, as well.  This comes back to my point about KODT....a comic about a game firmly rooted in older editions of D&D which is pretty much appropriate now, as then.  Bullying players who quote chapter-and-verse from the rulebook, for example, are a staple of that comic.  A 'weak' DM was just as easily pushed around then, as now.

If the 3E ruleset does, in fact, make a poor DM better....how is this bad?  Quite frankly, the best DMs can't be everywhere.  My players used to joke that they could rent me out (which was flattering, natch) since there were so many players with no game at all.  I didn't actually get a chance to be a player for more than a single session until well over a decade after I started playing RPGs, because other gamers often found it too intimidating or difficult.

You also seem to forget that DMs don't leap from the forehead of Zeus, fully grown.  3E has lowered the barrier to entry that DMing represented, allowing many people who might have otherwise never become DMs to do so...and to learn at it.  An inexperienced DM might not understand that a Ghast can easily create a TPK for a low-level party...or could be a total cake-walk, all depending on the whim of the dice.  Under AD&D, I had far more problems with trying to figure out appropriate challenges outside of written modules, because it was a much more subjective system with different goals.

One comment that was made by (iirc) Andy Collins was that with the advent of 3E, players and DMs both had become much more knowledgeble about good game design...such that people could identify bad rules, mistakes and poor mechanical design much, much quicker than they ever had in the past.  

It is far easier to ignore a guideline than it is to try and guess what a proper baseline is when you need one.  The CR and wealth systems do not, by any measure, mean that every dungeon has to be safe and level-appropriate, per se....they can be just as easily ignored as they used to be.  The PCs don't have to go through the Crater Ridge mines from the main entrance...but watch out for that spectre, chuul and the xorn through the secret cave tunnel (to use RtToEE as an example under 3.0).  The only difference now is that you know you are ignoring the guidelines (and hopefully understand the consequences).


----------



## MerricB

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> I'm not advocating megadungeons necessarily, just the underlying idea.  The DM creates an interesting place to explore, and the players find their preferred level of difficulty within it -- and because there's no "plot", the players choose what happens to their characters.  The DM just hands out the rewards, or enforces the consequences.




Although I appreciate the style - see my post  here - I hardly think it's the be-all and end-all of adventure design. Most of the classic adventures have very strong plots - or do I mean goals? - behind them. 

I dislike intensely railroaded adventures, easy though they are to design, but the intensely freeform adventure also fails to engage me. *Goals* are terribly important to good play, IMO, as well as a choice of paths to get to them.

The introduction of *time* to an adventure is tricky. Too much of a time constraint and players have no choice but to act recklessly. However, used properly, it's really effective.

Cheers!


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Well, most of what you discuss has absolutely nothing to do with any specific edition.




That was exactly my point, though.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> I sympathise. Your earlier edition DM must have been a very difficult person to get on with.
> 
> But the difference between a good DM and a poor one is down to personality, social skills and experience. It's got nothing to do with choice of rules edition. 3.x can't magically give a poor DM the personal attributes to make him or her into a good one. Nor do earlier editions magically make a good DM into a poor one.




Quite the opposite, actually. He did a fine job with the set he was given, but struggled to do things like "give tactical options in combat," or "giving the party wealth," or "challenging us without slaughtering us," for instance. Something that he never really worried about in 3e, though it was a frequent concern before. 



> That was exactly my point, though.




If you want to define "competent" as "vanilla" then of course you're safe in your statement that 3e doesn't make good DMs.

I define "competent" as "of a better than poor," so 3e makes better DMs.

We're not really disagreeing here, despite the fact that you see the baseline as bland and uninspiring and (correctly) see that good DMs can disregard a lot of it.

A game shouldn't cater to the best 1% of us, though, it should cater to those who haven't played before and those who are the common middle ground, and for that, it has turned at least a half-dozen people I know into better DMs than they were in previous editions.


----------



## Ourph

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> If you want to define "competent" as "vanilla" then of course you're safe in your statement that 3e doesn't make good DMs.
> 
> I define "competent" as "of a better than poor," so 3e makes better DMs.
> 
> We're not really disagreeing here, despite the fact that you see the baseline as bland and uninspiring and (correctly) see that good DMs can disregard a lot of it.




I think the disagreement here lies more in the definition of what makes a good DM rather than the effect of the rules.  The question is, does accurate and consistent application of the rules have anything to do with a DM's "level of quality".  IMO it does not.  A good DM with very little rules knowledge and inconsistent application of the rules can be a great DM.  A poor DM who runs a bland, vanilla, boring game or an unfair, frustrating game will not be helped by adopting a more detailed, consistent ruleset.  The things that define the quality of those two imaginary DMs have absolutely nothing to do with the rules or their application and everything to do with creativity, personality and adequate social skills.

IMO, the argument "more codified = more skilled" doesn't apply to GMs, but it certainly does apply to players.  3e, by codifying player options and making the game much more about challenging the character and his abilities rather than the player makes it MUCH easier to be a good, skilled player of the game.  My impression is that a lot of people enjoy that change and believe it was much needed.  I, personally, don't care for that model and prefer a game that's more about challenging the players outside the confines of the rules.  This probably explains why I think skill at applying the rules doesn't factor into DMing skill in any significant way.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Quite the opposite, actually. He did a fine job with the set he was given, but struggled to do things like "give tactical options in combat," or "giving the party wealth," or "challenging us without slaughtering us," for instance.




*nods*

This is another example of the flawed 3e-isms that I want to challenge.

I think the perception that the DM has to "give" the party all the things you mention is a basic flaw.  Notice the perception comes with a whole baggage of unspoken assumptions, like:  _If I don't have tactical options in combat, it's the DM's fault._  And:  _If I don't get enough wealth, it's the DM's fault._  And:  _If we get slaughtered, it's because the DM didn't create a balanced encounter._

I'm not surprised that a person who has these assumptions then goes on to say that most DM's aren't really very good.  I mean, what's the party actually doing in all this?  What are they responsible for?

In the game I run, the assumptions are:  _You should have scouted effectively, found the monsters, chosen your battleground, made a plan, and then attacked.  If you didn't do that, then any lack of tactical options you have in this fight is your own problem._  And:  _If you don't have enough wealth, you're looking in the wrong places or attacking the wrong targets._  And:  _If you get slaughtered, it's because you attacked without enough information, and then you forgot that retreat and surrender are both options.  Darwin would be proud._

Oh, sure, the DM has a responsibility, but it's just to give you meaningful choices and genuine opportunities.  There must be meaningful treasure there to find - and usually there's a lot of it.  But it's cunningly hidden, well-guarded and generally hard to get, so it's safe to say you won't find it all.  Once the DM's done that, surely your character's wealth level is entirely your responsibility?

And notice that 1e _did_ have very clearly-defined apparatus to make sure this happened.  There were pages and pages of tables to tell you in enormous detail what creature lived in what environment and what treasure it would be likely to have.

If your DM didn't use them, that's not a problem with the system.

If he did use them and you just didn't find the right treasure, or choose the right fight, then that's still not a problem with the system.


----------



## BroccoliRage

Well, I agree with your larger point, P&P. Encounters and challenges that are not specifically crafted to the adventuring party, and are sometimes insurmountable, give the overall impression of a living breathing fantasy world. Plot is something that should be crafted more by the players than the DM. The DM can present locations and history, emboidied in a deserted castle inhabited by a wicked lich who holds some great treasure or amazing artifact, but what occurs within that castle is up to the players. If the NPC's and entities inhabiting the world are properly roleplayed, than custom tailoring of adversaries won't be neccescary. The players WILL rub smeone the wrong way. They WILL run afoul of someone. The only thing the DM needs to do is pay attention to how the player's interact, and not let his mind wander when the Player's are roleplaying. 

Things like CR give the players ammo against the DM. "You're a killer DM because you rolled a dragon as a random encounter in the wilderness, and your die roll determined that it saw us. How terribly unbalanced. A fair DM would never have given us that encounter." No, you didn't run. You chose to fight. Perhaps the dragon wouldn't have been interested in chasing so scant a meal. The world is dangerous, anyway. Creatures exist that you can't handle, and they aren't just stories told in the tavern. Some things you can't handle, because the traps in this tomb were designed to kill would-be tomb raiders. If you weren't ready, it wasn't my fault. They are your characters, and I do not control what you do with them.

I DM alot more often than I sit on the player's side of the screen. I do not feel it is my responsibility to drive the players on, it's my job to play the entire world with respect to itself, and with respect to the players' actions. It is their job to overcome/survive the challenges life as an adventurer presents them with. It is mine to take on the role of an entire world, and keep it living and breathing. 

I don't like ultra-freeform modules, but I dislike the idea that all encounters


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> Things like CR give the players ammo against the DM. "You're a killer DM because you rolled a dragon as a random encounter in the wilderness, and your die roll determined that it saw us. How terribly unbalanced. A fair DM would never have given us that encounter." No, you didn't run. You chose to fight. Perhaps the dragon wouldn't have been interested in chasing so scant a meal. The world is dangerous, anyway. Creatures exist that you can't handle, and they aren't just stories told in the tavern. Some things you can't handle, because the traps in this tomb were designed to kill would-be tomb raiders. If you weren't ready, it wasn't my fault. They are your characters, and I do not control what you do with them.




Straw man.

"Things like CR" are completely irrelevant to this scenario.

If you used the encounter design advice included in the 3e DMG, the players would have grown used to the fact that to fight everything they meet will have its inevitable pay out in PC deaths.

If the players insist on being coddled, their arguments (such as they are) are no less persuasive in 1e or 2e.


----------



## Korak

Ourph said:
			
		

> IMO, the argument "more codified = more skilled" doesn't apply to GMs, but it certainly does apply to players.  3e, by codifying player options and making the game much more about challenging the character and his abilities rather than the player makes it MUCH easier to be a good, skilled player of the game.




I'm not so sure about that.  Playing in and DM'ing for numerous Living Greyhawk games in 3.0 and 3.5, I have to say that I have seem tons of characters that were not just suboptimal, but wildly ineffective.  Some of those characters belonged to players that brought thoughtful, fun, and enriching role-play to the table, but some... didn't.  With the thousands upon thousands of options available to players in 3e, many inexperienced players make mechanically horrible characters that do not make the game easy.



			
				Ourph said:
			
		

> I, personally, don't care for that model and prefer a game that's more about challenging the players outside the confines of the rules.  This probably explains why I think skill at applying the rules doesn't factor into DMing skill in any significant way.




I think I have a real appreciation for your viewpoint.  I just don't think that the rules are a cause of the kind of game-play you dislike.  I believe the true factors are just matters of DM and player style, independent of the choice of rules.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

You are making enormous play style assumptions, PP.

DMs themselves might have different goals than you have.

Generally speaking, mostly status quo encounters makes sense for designing a living and breathing world.

But sometimes a DM wants to run a largely linear plot for a particular adventure.  It is not a DMing flaw to desire tools such as those provided in 3e to add a greater degree of predictability.


----------



## MoogleEmpMog

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> Straw man.
> 
> "Things like CR" are completely irrelevant to this scenario.
> 
> If you used the encounter design advice included in the 3e DMG, the players would have grown used to the fact that to fight everything they meet will have its inevitable pay out in PC deaths.
> 
> If the players insist on being coddled, their arguments (such as they are) are no less persuasive in 1e or 2e.




Actually, since the encounter design tables explicitly suggest including encounters powerful enough to either defeat the party or kill several PCs if fought directly, doesn't that make the players' arguments LESS persuasive than in 1e or 2e?  Purely by the Rules As Written, I mean.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I always tailors encounters to the party and can't stand the Simulationist desire to have a 'real working world' that doesn't facilitate play, genre or story; that doesn't mean I don't sometimes tailor encounters to be far, far more powerful than the party - even Conan had to run away quite often)


----------



## MerricB

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> And:  _If you get slaughtered, it's because you attacked without enough information, and then you forgot that retreat and surrender are both options.  Darwin would be proud._




That's equally true of how 3e works. My kill-count proves it. Reckless players will get their PCs killed.

We played (I actually played! yay!) a 3e conversion of Greyhawk Ruins. During the course of the adventure we made it to 14th level (from 1st). In the play of it, my PC never died. By the end of the campaign, almost everyone was looking to me to see when they should retreat. 

Meanwhile, another player lost about 8 PCs during the course of play. He was in the classic Tracy Hickman Barbarian mold - fun, to him, was seeing what was on the other side of the door. If he went down under a horde of monsters, or got whisked off to the abyss... it was all good.

We ran into a Great Wyrm Red Dragon. Oh, that was bad. Everyone else was lucky and managed to go the correct way to the exit. Not me. No, I was facing a GWRD on my own. So, I talked my way out of it. Good role-playing, a PC with a very high Diplomacy skill, and a natural 20 on the roll.

Heh. That was adventuring in the true megadungeon format.

However, that's not the only form of adventure. Look at the published D&D adventures. Almost all of them are "quest" adventures with goals. If the key encounters, the encounters that need to be overcome, are too difficult, then you have a TPK and a bunch of unhappy PCs.

They don't have to be railroady. Giants isn't (that much). Slavers is. (tournament format). Pharoah isn't. But the encounters must be achievable. Isn't it lucky that the PCs are the right levels when the DM uses those adventures?

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> Heh, the funny thing is, we actually have had more than a few polls on exactly this.
> 
> I once did a poll about how many people had ever seen what you are describing - players demanding this or that from a DM.  By an overwhelming majority - some twenty to one - no one had ever seen it in play.  Those who HAD seen it, had seen it from exactly one player.  This is a myth that gets promoted by the internet.
> 
> Raven Crowking did a poll some time ago about whether or not he should allow a player to play a warforged ninja in his pirates themed game.  Again, by a margin of about twenty to one, people supported RC's denial of the player.
> 
> The numbers simply do not support what you are saying Thurbane.



Well, as I said earlier in this thread (or was it another?) I don't have any R/T contact with other gaming groups, so, flawed as it may be, the interweb is my only yardstick. From the frequency of these complaints over at WotC forums, I had assumed that they must be fairly common IRL. My own group are all in their late twenties to mid thrities, and most have been gaming for 20 or so years, so we don't generally have many childish tantrums at our own games.


----------



## Thurbane

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> I sympathise.  Your earlier edition DM must have been a very difficult person to get on with.
> 
> But the difference between a good DM and a poor one is down to personality, social skills and experience.  It's got nothing to do with choice of rules edition. 3.x can't magically give a poor DM the personal attributes to make him or her into a good one.  Nor do earlier editions magically make a good DM into a poor one.



Agree 138%


----------



## Ourph

Korak said:
			
		

> I just don't think that the rules are a cause of the kind of game-play you dislike.  I believe the true factors are just matters of DM and player style, independent of the choice of rules.




Style is obviously extremely important (I think that's pretty much what I said in my previous post) but there are without question official rules in D&D 3e that explicitly affect the character challenge vs. player challenge balance.  Rules aren't the only things that matter, but they DO matter.


----------



## ghul

PandP wrote:

_In the game I run, the assumptions are: You should have scouted effectively, found the monsters, chosen your battleground, made a plan, and then attacked. If you didn't do that, then any lack of tactical options you have in this fight is your own problem. And: If you don't have enough wealth, you're looking in the wrong places or attacking the wrong targets. And: If you get slaughtered, it's because you attacked without enough information, and then you forgot that retreat and surrender are both options. Darwin would be proud._
===========
QFT!  Quoted for Troof!

--Ghul


----------



## BroccoliRage

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> Straw man.
> 
> "Things like CR" are completely irrelevant to this scenario.
> 
> If you used the encounter design advice included in the 3e DMG, the players would have grown used to the fact that to fight everything they meet will have its inevitable pay out in PC deaths.
> 
> If the players insist on being coddled, their arguments (such as they are) are no less persuasive in 1e or 2e.




What?

I was agreeing with someone else, so my argument is irrelevant?

I felt that CR was counter-productive to what i try to accomplish, and you start referring me to a system I don't really care for?

Are you picking a fight with me or something? P&P just answered a question I posed at another messageboard, a conversation you probably weren't following, and you tell me I'm posing a strawman argument, referring me to rules I don't care about or even really remember, it's been so long since I read them? Maybe I'm misreading your intentions, but it seemed you were trying to condescend to me.

I'm not involved in this "superiority of systems" argument, and I really haven't been. If anything, I've stated again and again I use AD&D because I like it and that's good enough for me, and if other folks don't like AD&D so be it. What was the point in that last statement.


----------



## BroccoliRage

MerricB said:
			
		

> They don't have to be railroady. Pharoah isn't.





I love Pharoah, but I'm surprised you think it's less rail-roady than Scourge of the Slavelords. Mind explaining?


----------



## Korak

Ourph said:
			
		

> Style is obviously extremely important (I think that's pretty much what I said in my previous post) but there are without question official rules in D&D 3e that explicitly affect the character challenge vs. player challenge balance.  Rules aren't the only things that matter, but they DO matter.




I'm not sure I had the right impression from your first post.  Can you provide a more specific example to illustrate your point for me?  What skills or proficiencies (not game concepts, but meta concepts) did a player have to have in previous editions to be a "good" or "skilled" player that are no longer needed or relatively as important in 3e, and what about the 3e rules makes causes that situation?


----------



## MerricB

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> I love Pharoah, but I'm surprised you think it's less rail-roady than Scourge of the Slavelords. Mind explaining?




In particular, look at _Slave Pits of the Undercity_ in its tournament form. Your options for exploration are very limited. 

_Pharoah_ has a basic goal (steal the two quest items), but the path you take to that is quite free - there are multiple paths through the pyramid. (My group took, quite by chance, the easiest one, bypassing all the tough encounters... then got slaughtered when they went back in to look for more treasure. )

Cheers!


----------



## FireLance

Korak said:
			
		

> I'm not sure I had the right impression from your first post.  Can you provide a more specific example to illustrate your point for me?  What skills or proficiencies (not game concepts, but meta concepts) did a player have to have in previous editions to be a "good" or "skilled" player that are no longer needed or relatively as important in 3e, and what about the 3e rules makes causes that situation?



The usual complaints relate to rules that enable a player to roll dice to overcome a challenge instead of using his own abilities or to achieve a desired result immediately without needing to roll dice, for example:

1. Rolling a Diplomacy/Bluff/Intimidate check instead of using his own interpersonal skills.
2. Taking 20 on a Search check to find a trap or a secret door instead of being patient and waiting for the dice to roll his way.
3. Rolling a Knowledge check to discover the abilities of an encountered monster or a Spellcraft check to discover the effects of magical phenomenon instead of finding out by trial and error.

To illustrate the difference in approach, consider the proverbial Gordian knot. A 3e player would put skill ranks into Use Rope, increase his Dexterity with magic items or spells, use other spells or abilities to boost his skill check, and then take 20. A 1e player would do what Alexander the Great did and just cut it with his sword. 3e encourages rules mastery and creativity in using the rules. 1e encouraged a more unstructured, "out of the box" kind of creativity.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Korak said:
			
		

> I'm not sure I had the right impression from your first post.  Can you provide a more specific example to illustrate your point for me?  What skills or proficiencies (not game concepts, but meta concepts) did a player have to have in previous editions to be a "good" or "skilled" player that are no longer needed or relatively as important in 3e, and what about the 3e rules makes causes that situation?




I'm not Ourph, but I believe I can have a go at answering this.

The change here happened in the early 1980's, and it's not so much about "previous editions" as being specifically about early 1e (and the Basic game versions which came out at the same time).

Later in the 1e period, and certainly by the time 2e came out, there was assumption that the purpose of the game is to generate Story, and the way to do that is for the DM to devise a Plot.  I blame Tracy Hickman, personally; he started it with Pharaoh and made it worse with Dragonlance.

But earlier D&D was much more gamist in its approach.  The mechanisms were a bit primitive and required a lot of suspension of disbelief:  A "campaign" was a single, huge megadungeon comprising many levels of several hundred rooms each, with monsters and puzzles placed fairly arbitrarily within that megadungeon.  There were usually several staircases between levels, and often chute traps or elevator rooms or other ways of getting the players to change levels involuntarily.  Each level was tougher and more rewarding than the one before.

The 1e DMG had huge amounts of content devoted to this apparatus.  There were whole appendices (Appendices A, C and G are probably the critical ones) comprising many packed pages, and these described in detail precisely what monsters should be encountered on what levels and precisely how much treasure they should have.

The players then _chose their path_ through this complex megadungeon, and this is the first point I want to extract in answer to the question.  They decided when to change levels, so they chose their own level of difficulty/reward.

Then in the 1980's, that paradigm somehow changed.  Monster Level (which was 1e's relatively rough and ready version of CR) was used to populate whole modules rather than regions that the player could choose whether or not to enter.  This mirrors how CR is presently used, and it's the principal point I object to about CR.

To come back to your question, the matters relevant to "good" or "skilled" play from this 1970's style related to ways and means of adventuring in areas at the limits of your character's ability:

Scouting.  You found out what you were up against by spells such as Wizard Eye or Augury, or else you captured a prisoner and extracted the information from it (which I think was the original purpose of spells like _Charm_ -- to enable good-aligned players to use this tactic without needing to resort to torture).
Escaping.  You learned to cut your losses and flee or surrender when necessary.
Planning.  You learned to lure difficult monster onto grounds of your own choosing and kill them from ambush (the 1e Surprise rules were absolutely mean).
Negotiating.  Particularly if you weren't a good-aligned player, you learned to bribe monsters to go away if the encounter didn't look likely to be profitable -- or to accept a bribe from them to go away.
All these are perfectly possible in 3e, of course.  But it's my perception that most 3e players don't scout ahead, don't take prisoners, don't run from battle or surrender, don't negotiate with hostile NPCs, and when attempting to kill a powerful monster, always go directly for the frontal assault.

I think a lot of the problem is that in the 1980's a character death became quite a major drama.  Sometimes, there were tears.

In the 1970's, many players were miniatures wargamers and they were accustomed to taking casualties.  There was a very callous doctrine of acceptable losses.  Rolling a new character only took about five minutes, so you just sucked it up and re-rolled and pitched back in at the next opportunity.  But the later style with super-elaborate character generation made death much more of a pain, and it somehow became the DM's job to make sure the players survived.

And, of course, you could resolve a melee involving a party of 12 characters and their 19 henchmen and hirelings -vs- a dozen bugbears, two dozen goblins and their dogs in about ten minutes, so combat took up much less gaming time.

I'm not pretending this 1970's style was perfect.  It certainly had its problems!  But I think it contains valuable lessons to be learned in today's game.


----------



## FireLance

P&P, thanks for sharing your views. I can see where you're coming from, although I think we look for very different things in our games.

Perhaps it is because I came from a background in "Choose Your Own Adventure" and "Fighting Fantasy" gamebooks, and computer games like Wizardry and Ultima instead of wargaming. I do expect some kind of plot in my games, but I don't appreciate being railroaded. "Meaningful choice" to me is not whether I choose an easy challenge with low rewards or a difficult one with the chance of winning big. "Meaningful choice" relates to how much control I have over the outcome - whether, through the choices made by my character, the BBEG achieves his objective or is thwarted, whether the hostage is killed or rescued, whether the kingdom is destroyed or saved. It is the feeling that if my character had not been there, the outcome would have been different, and worse. In other words, I play the game to get the vicarious feeling of being a hero. And when it's my turn in the DM chair, I run games where the players get to feel like heroes, too.

Now, if this is what you and your group are trying to get out of your games, you want the PCs to win most of the time (unless you're running a sacrifice scenario or something along those lines), as long as they are reasonably clever, take sensible precautions, and make fairly sound tactical choices, but you don't want the fights and challenges to be walkovers, either. This is where guidelines like CR and standard wealth levels become useful. It doesn't matter to the players that they don't get to choose the level of challenge they face and the reward that they receive because it isn't important to them (although it can be argued that a party that decides to stand up to the BBEG is taking the high-risk, high-reward option, and the party that decides to run away is taking the low-risk, low-reward option). It doesn't matter to them that they aren't completely in control, because they are still affecting the plot in a meaningful fashion.

I'm not saying that this style of gaming will appeal to everyone, but it does appeal to some of us .


----------



## mmadsen

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> To come back to your question, the matters relevant to "good" or "skilled" play from this 1970's style related to ways and means of adventuring in areas at the limits of your character's ability:
> 
> Scouting.  You found out what you were up against by spells such as Wizard Eye or Augury, or else you captured a prisoner and extracted the information from it (which I think was the original purpose of spells like _Charm_ -- to enable good-aligned players to use this tactic without needing to resort to torture).
> Escaping.  You learned to cut your losses and flee or surrender when necessary.
> Planning.  You learned to lure difficult monster onto grounds of your own choosing and kill them from ambush (the 1e Surprise rules were absolutely mean).
> Negotiating.  Particularly if you weren't a good-aligned player, you learned to bribe monsters to go away if the encounter didn't look likely to be profitable -- or to accept a bribe from them to go away.
> All these are perfectly possible in 3e, of course.  But it's my perception that most 3e players don't scout ahead, don't take prisoners, don't run from battle or surrender, don't negotiate with hostile NPCs, and when attempting to kill a powerful monster, always go directly for the frontal assault.



Well said.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

FireLance said:
			
		

> It doesn't matter to the players that they don't get to choose the level of challenge they face and the reward that they receive because it isn't important to them... It doesn't matter to them that they aren't completely in control, because they are still affecting the plot in a meaningful fashion.




*nods*

Thanks for the summary.  That says what I was trying to say, only much more succinctly.

The current style allows the players to _affect_ a plot the DM's already written.  In the earlier one, they were creating a story of their own as they went along.


----------



## Maggan

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> All these are perfectly possible in 3e, of course.  But it's my perception that most 3e players don't scout ahead, don't take prisoners, don't run from battle or surrender, don't negotiate with hostile NPCs, and when attempting to kill a powerful monster, always go directly for the frontal assault.




In my experience most playes I have DM'd using 3e (maybe a hundred or so, I do a lot of convention games), do take all these precautions as well as others.

Also IME players will do whatever it takes for their PCs to stay alive, which includes tactics like those mentioned, as well as rules mastery and plenty of resting to replenish resources.

Sure, some players of D&D will charge anything at once, but from what I have observed among my gaming friends those players will be the same players who charge anything at once in Call of Cthulhu as well.  

/M


----------



## WizarDru

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> In the 1970's, many players were miniatures wargamers and they were accustomed to taking casualties.  There was a very callous doctrine of acceptable losses.  Rolling a new character only took about five minutes, so you just sucked it up and re-rolled and pitched back in at the next opportunity.  But the later style with super-elaborate character generation made death much more of a pain, and it somehow became the DM's job to make sure the players survived.




Seeing as how I was playing in the 1970s, I think I can comment that even then, this was A playstyle, not the only playstyle.  Yes, in the early 1970s the game was all about delving...but it wasn't really an RPG as we know it, then....it was still just a speciailized miniatures game that started evolving.  Modules in those days made the assumption that you would create all the story details yourself, not that there weren't any there at all.  Heck, most early modules were Tournament modules, originally used at conventions, where they were intended to be played in a very short period of time.  

One reason that many people didn't stay with D&D after their brush with it in the 1980s was that it became dull after the initial thrill was gone.  You can only raid so many dungeons before it gets repetitive, unless you've got a truly inventive DM.  Many people wanted more than just a tactical exercise from D&D...they wanted some verisimilitude.  "Erac's Cousin" may have been good for a laugh...but the fact that Rob Kuntz feels that the development of his old PC Robilar has been essentially not-in-character illustrates that even then, players _could_ think of their characters that way, if they so chose.

In fact, if you read EGG's discussion of the early days, it was clear that PC death was much more significant than just 'roll a new one'.  Players actually got very conservative _because_ the death rate got so high...it was a badge of honor to survive for so long.

It has never been the DM's job to ensure the players survive, but it has been the DM's job to make sure the players HAVE FUN.  Since that particular aspect varies from group to group, it's harder to pin down.  Further, tastes changed and continue to do so.  What's the justifictaion for exploring the Caves of Chaos?  They're there, essentially.  What's the justification for entering the Sunless Citadel?  Take your pick, the module offers several.  

This doesn't make one experience inherently better than another.  What strikes me though is how different it is NOT.  In 1982, I was running a campaign where story was equally important as a motivator.  Ogres were killed, items were collected...but the story helped to move the players on.  Some people want to play a miniatures game, while others want a simulation of their favorite novel and still others want some hybrid inbetween.

The Soul of D&D?  _It's rolling a natural 20 when you're down to 3 hit points and the cleric's on the floor and you're staring that sunnavabitch bugbear right in his bloodshot eye and holding the line just long enough to let the wizard unleash a fireball at the guards who are on their way, because they're all that stands between you, the Foozle and Glory._


----------



## I'm A Banana

Ourph said:
			
		

> The question is, does accurate and consistent application of the rules have anything to do with a DM's "level of quality". IMO it does not. A good DM with very little rules knowledge and inconsistent application of the rules can be a great DM. A poor DM who runs a bland, vanilla, boring game or an unfair, frustrating game will not be helped by adopting a more detailed, consistent ruleset. The things that define the quality of those two imaginary DMs have absolutely nothing to do with the rules or their application and everything to do with creativity, personality and adequate social skills.




I would not consider a DM who changed the rules for the same mechanic from session to session a very good DM, even if he did it for dramatic or creative reasons. If every time I went to make an attack roll I had to roll a different dice, the inconsistency would stand in the way of me having fun. Thus, a more consistent and detailed ruleset that provides a baseline of what you roll attack rolls with is making the DM better -- if he has me roll 2d10 as an attack roll instead of 1d20, he knows what he's doing, becaue he knows how the initial rule affects plays and knows what kind of effect he wants out of the rules change.

Creativity, personality, and social skills are some of the cornerstones of DMing, but those aren't binary personality traits you either have or don't. Compare it to writing -- many people have the ability to write a competent novel, but they require education in things like scentence structure and plotting in order to do it. Not everyone is Homer and can take a new thing like the written word and create a classic out of it. Not everyone is the Wonderful DM who can turn a night of "rock-paper-scissors" into high tension drama. It would be very very stupid for the game to recommend that only those who are that kind of Wonderful DM should DM. Thus, it gives you an education in things like rules design and what is cliche and how to handle sticky social situations and little player psychologies (I'm thinking of what's in the DMGII for that, though a lot say it should have been in the core). Now, many people have the ability to DM a decent game of D&D. They don't need to be naturally Wonderful DMs.



			
				Ourph said:
			
		

> IMO, the argument "more codified = more skilled" doesn't apply to GMs, but it certainly does apply to players. 3e, by codifying player options and making the game much more about challenging the character and his abilities rather than the player makes it MUCH easier to be a good, skilled player of the game. My impression is that a lot of people enjoy that change and believe it was much needed. I, personally, don't care for that model and prefer a game that's more about challenging the players outside the confines of the rules. This probably explains why I think skill at applying the rules doesn't factor into DMing skill in any significant way.




So a style consideration. You prefer a minority style that has fallen out of favor, so what a "skilled DM" is to you isn't going to be what most people consider skilled. So, how would you want a "skilled DM" to appear? And why is that kind of skill contingent on earlier editions?



			
				P&P said:
			
		

> I think the perception that the DM has to "give" the party all the things you mention is a basic flaw. Notice the perception comes with a whole baggage of unspoken assumptions, like: If I don't have tactical options in combat, it's the DM's fault. And: If I don't get enough wealth, it's the DM's fault. And: If we get slaughtered, it's because the DM didn't create a balanced encounter.




The DM IS The guy who puts the treasure and the monsters there. The responsibility is certainly his to know the player's styles well enough to cater to them, or he is, fairly by definition, a bad DM. If the players liked political intrigue and the DM decided his game would revolve around a month long dungeon crawl, he would be a bad DM. Likewise, if the DM knows that the players are going to rush in half-cocked and try to slay the evil (because that's what's fun for them) and decides to lay the smack down, it's a poor DM because he's not helping the players to have fun. They would be better served by a DM who is willing to give them big, dramatic, not-too-difficult combats. Four other people at the table shouldn't be forced to change the way they have fun because the DM isn't willng to give them what they want.

Of course, they should be open-minded and flexible as well, tolerating the occasional dungeon crawl in a political campaign (especially if one or two of the players enjoy it), but it would be a very poor DM who forces their own style choices onto unwilling players.



			
				P&P said:
			
		

> I'm not surprised that a person who has these assumptions then goes on to say that most DM's aren't really very good. I mean, what's the party actually doing in all this? What are they responsible for?
> 
> In the game I run, the assumptions are: You should have scouted effectively, found the monsters, chosen your battleground, made a plan, and then attacked. If you didn't do that, then any lack of tactical options you have in this fight is your own problem. And: If you don't have enough wealth, you're looking in the wrong places or attacking the wrong targets. And: If you get slaughtered, it's because you attacked without enough information, and then you forgot that retreat and surrender are both options. Darwin would be proud.




The party is responsible for telling the DM what kind of game they want through their character choices. You look at the wilderness scout and the druid and the ranger and you run an urban campaign in Sigil, you're not being a very good DM. You see one character as as the brutish, direct barbarian and demand constant stealth missions, you're not being a very good DM. You know your players want wealth and you don't show them ways in which they can acquire it, you are not being a very good DM.

DMs of older editions for me had significant of difficulty wrapping their minds around that very basic social contract. And they knew it. After a TPK at the adventure's climax, there would be apologies for having a villain "they thought we could beat." After another few rounds of "I run up and attack him," they were getting bored, too. When we griped about not having enough gold for the inn rooms, they wondered where else these wolves we were fighting could drop treasure and came up empty. 

And after learning 3e, they now knew what we could handle and what we couldn't. They now could describe the effects of taking cover and concealment and line of sight and line of effect and obstructed terrain (and used them often). They knew now that after 3 hours of fighting wolves in the forest, we could meet some brigands and loot them and their cart (varying challenges to boot). They dropped hints in town with Gather Information about what we were looking for. The lore about monsters came out with a Knowledge check. 

They became better at giving us what we thought was fun; they became better DMs. 



> If your DM didn't use them, that's not a problem with the system.
> 
> If he did use them and you just didn't find the right treasure, or choose the right fight, then that's still not a problem with the system.




No, but it IS the fault of the system that these were relatively poor rules, and thus met the need much less well than the new system, sometimes to the point of not meeting the need at all. 

How were my old DMs to know what an appropriate XP award was for our level and choose monsters we could clearly face? How were they supposed to use rules that were convoluted, counter-intuitive, and more trouble than they were worth and still have fun with them? Who would teach them what was appropriate for our level with treasure, what was too little, and what was monty haul? Where would their *education* on being a DM lie? Because the rulebooks did not do a good enough job in many cases (where the DM isn't just naturally good at being a DM). 



			
				P&P said:
			
		

> Later in the 1e period, and certainly by the time 2e came out, there was assumption that the purpose of the game is to generate Story, and the way to do that is for the DM to devise a Plot. I blame Tracy Hickman, personally; he started it with Pharaoh and made it worse with Dragonlance.




Could it be that this is what most of the audience actually WANTS out of the game? Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume people want more LotR and less Chainmail, given how many people know about Frodo and how many people have played Chainmail? Isn't this just the game meeting the needs of the audience? "Market forces" at work.



			
				P&P said:
			
		

> All these are perfectly possible in 3e, of course. But it's my perception that most 3e players don't scout ahead, don't take prisoners, don't run from battle or surrender, don't negotiate with hostile NPCs, and when attempting to kill a powerful monster, always go directly for the frontal assault.




In my previous-edition experiences, none of this happened. In my current-edition experiences, this happens when the players want to do it. If the players are interested in having scouts, the DM makes scouting worthwhile. If the players want to negotiate, the DM makes negotiating something that will work. If the players want to feel like the world exists beyond them rather than for them, the DM will put in things that they cannot effect. If the players like the frontal assault, then the DM will make the frontal assault much of the game.

The point is, people should do what they have fun doing, and 3e has made DMs (IMXP) significantly better at delivering what the group wants out of the game. "Do what thou wilt" isn't just Crowley and Punk, it's 3e, too. The game that makes that the easiest is the *successful* game.


----------



## Kormydigar

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Likewise, if the DM knows that the players are going to rush in half-cocked and try to slay the evil (because that's what's fun for them) and decides to lay the smack down, it's a poor DM because he's not helping the players to have fun. They would be better served by a DM who is willing to give them big, dramatic, not-too-difficult combats. Four other people at the table shouldn't be forced to change the way they have fun because the DM isn't willng to give them what they want.




Ok. You do have some good points to make, but this isn't one of them IMHO. It sounds like you are saying that intelligent opponents should stop being intelligent because the party doesn't feel like doing any thinking. So the players have a right to use intelligent tactics but if they choose not to do so then the NPC's can't either? This style of play wouldn't be any fun for my group using ANY edition of the game. This definition of " better served" sounds like exactly that- the DM as a server. The four other people at the table can log into WOW for that kind of fun because a DM isn't really needed.


----------



## Ourph

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> So a style consideration. You prefer a minority style that has fallen out of favor, so what a "skilled DM" is to you isn't going to be what most people consider skilled.




Perhaps.  Although, I think a lot of people who look at a description of a game and say "no thanks" would enjoy the game if they actually sat down and played, especially if that game is run by a (by my definition) "skilled" DM.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> So, how would you want a "skilled DM" to appear? And why is that kind of skill contingent on earlier editions?




A skilled DM (IMO) creates interesting challenges, makes player choice significant to the general outcome of the game, provides an environment that rewards good tactical and strategic play and offers consequences for poor play and rash decision-making and keeps the game flowing smoothly.  He achieves these things by being creative, imaginative, fair, impartial and through use of clear, unambiguous communication with the players.

My earlier point is that this is NOT tied to an edition of the game or to a specific game or to a specific rule.  A DM who is skilled in this way will not be hampered by using a different set of rules (provided those rules are of reasonable quality, which all editions of D&D AFAIC definitely are), nor will a DM who lacks these skills suddenly develop them by using a ruleset that provides more structure and covers more area.  An unfair DM (one who, for example, fails to allow good play to result in commensurate rewards and, in fact, actively thwarts player success for his own personal reasons) isn't going to be more fun to play with because he's got rules for Diplomacy checks and magic item creation to work with.

Yes, it can be frustrating to play with an inexperienced DM who keeps fumbling through the rulebooks and making mistakes and a simpler to learn ruleset can make the transition time between rules-unfamiliar and rules-familiar shorter.  However, I don't think that's what is being discussed here.  The argument I read and understood to be put forward was that a more thorough, comprehensive ruleset could take an already experienced poor DM and improve his game and the reverse (going to a less comprehensive ruleset) could take an experienced good DM and reduce the quality of his game.  I completely disagree with that notion.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Kormydigar said:
			
		

> Ok. You do have some good points to make, but this isn't one of them IMHO. It sounds like you are saying that intelligent opponents should stop being intelligent because the party doesn't feel like doing any thinking. So the players have a right to use intelligent tactics but if they choose not to do so then the NPC's can't either? This style of play wouldn't be any fun for my group using ANY edition of the game. This definition of " better served" sounds like exactly that- the DM as a server. The four other people at the table can log into WOW for that kind of fun because a DM isn't really needed.




If I interpreted Kamikaze Midget's comment in that manner, then I would agree that it sounds like foolish advice.  But I do not think that is he meant.

If a particular group consistently fails to use certain tactical savvy you or I might consider SOP, it is not a DM virtue to "teach them a lesson" in the big finale.  If you have not successfully gotten the point across before then, then either you have to some degree failed as a DM or there is a deeper conflict about play style best resolved while chatting casually with beers in hand.

I do not understand why you assume that the DM cannot use tactics.  One could get much the same kind of pleasure by choosing weaker foes and playing them to the hilt, rather than adopting the unhelpful presumption that a PC "deserves" to die if not played in the manner you are used to.


----------



## LcKedovan

Hrmmmm.... just some short points from my point of view.  

new edition: (4e)... money making for WotC. Only reason for them to change it.

3.0/3.5e Different from other versions of the game. Some nice improvements from my groups point-of-view, but also sometimes too miniature focused for me (money making again? call me a cynic).

For me, the game is just a framework. As a DM I use that framework to build the story for the characters and use the rules as a common ground to resolve our story. We play 3.5e but also still play Basic D&D from time to time, not to mention other systems from other companies. Depends on what we want to do.

The problem seems straightforward. Company A releases a really great game. People love it, buy it, they release some products. At some point saturation point is reached. You don't need every book out there to run a game for years, especially if "imagination" leaps into the frame. The problem then begins for Company A. A lot less income. Game either fades and dies with no support.... or a new version is released. At some point you run out of ideas for supplements because everything is covered. Its a conundrum... 

The soul of D&D and any other game is imagination. In some cases recently some of that imagination has been provided for you, miniatures instead of describing the battle (mind you it does help with the "I wasn't standing there, he couldn't hit me debates"). I see this all as part and parcel of the general decline of civilisation in the West rather than a problem intrinsic to D&D   

Edit: Oh, and I thought I would state the whole "Wishful fulfillment" stuff earlier in the thread. I disagree, like chess or anything other game RPGs are a way for me to spend some time with friends and have fun. I'm not saying there are not people who use it as a form of escapism but I am perfectly happy with who I am. I would much rather be me living my life than pretty much anything I could play in a game. I'm not saying if someone came along and gave me superpowers that I wouldn't use 'em, but I play the game for fun and camraderie.. plain and simple.

-W.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Ourph said:
			
		

> A skilled DM (IMO) creates interesting challenges, makes player choice significant to the general outcome of the game, provides an environment that rewards good tactical and strategic play and offers consequences for poor play and rash decision-making and keeps the game flowing smoothly.  He achieves these things by being creative, imaginative, fair, impartial and through use of clear, unambiguous communication with the players.




I agree completely.




			
				Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> If a particular group consistently fails to use certain tactical savvy you or I might consider SOP, it is not a DM virtue to "teach them a lesson" in the big finale. If you have not successfully gotten the point across before then, then either you have to some degree failed as a DM or there is a deeper conflict about play style best resolved while chatting casually with beers in hand.




I find it somewhat inconsistent to both claim that the DM should not be teaching what is rewarding within the confines of the game he runs, and also that it is the DM's fault if the players do not learn this.  Obviously, one (or both) of these ideas cannot be true.  Moreover, continuing to perform the same actions in the same circumstances, with a belief that those actions will somehow create a different outcome, is a bigger problem than playstyle or DM competence/incompetence.

DMs and players both are better served by playing with others whose playstyles are at least compatible.  It is not incumbant upon the DM to change playstyles, if for no other reason than that it is not incumbant upon anyone to DM.  It is certainly not incumbant upon anyone to do the work of DMing in a manner that they do not enjoy.


RC


----------



## Crothian

LcKedovan said:
			
		

> Hrmmmm.... just some short points from my point of view.
> 
> new edition: (4e)... money making for WotC. Only reason for them to change it.




It's not the only reason.  3.x has enough problems and I have to imagine Wizards has learned a lot of how to do an OGL type game.  Any company that takes itself seriously is going to have money as part of nearly any choose they make.  But it is rarely the only reason.


----------



## Henry

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I find it somewhat inconsistent to both claim that the DM should not be teaching what is rewarding within the confines of the game he runs, and also that it is the DM's fault if the players do not learn this.




To be fair, he did say, "in the big finale." It reads to me that if a DM hasn't nudged them towards being more cautious previously, a major climax ain't the moment to do it.



> DMs and players both are better served by playing with others whose playstyles are at least compatible. It is not incumbant upon the DM to change playstyles, if for no other reason than that it is not incumbant upon anyone to DM. It is certainly not incumbant upon anyone to do the work of DMing in a manner that they do not enjoy.




To an extent, I can agree, but in that play styles can be very mutable in a group, varying by anything from game to campaign, I think as was said, it's a better idea to be in agreement before the game starts rolling.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The responsibility is certainly his to know the player's styles well enough to cater to them, or he is, fairly by definition, a bad DM.




Absolutely not.

If the players liked political intrigue and the DM decided his game would revolve around a month long dungeon crawl, and he is upfront about this, the players have to decide whether or not to play.  Nothing more.  This doesn't make him a bad DM. 

Likewise, if the players like to rush in half-cocked and try to slay the evil guy, but they know that the DM prefers to make things more difficult, they have to decide whether or not to play.  If they are going to play, they have to decide if rushing in and dying (with the slim chance of success) or stopping to think will be more fun.  The DM not catering to the players does not make him a bad DM.

If you're running an urban campaign in Sigil (or Ptolus) and the players decide to make druids, rangers, and scouts, that's on them, not on you.  You are not a bad DM because any given player or group of players is unable to make appropriate characters for the game setting.

Noone is ever forced to change the way they have fun, but if four other people are going to sit at the table, the DM shouldn't be forced to change the way he has fun because the players aren't willng to give him what he wants.  Sometimes, some players shouldn't be playing with some DMs.  That doesn't make those DMs bad DMs.  Frankly, it is impossible for a DM to force his own style choices onto unwilling players.

Sometimes, some DMs shouldn't have any players at all.  Those we can safely say are bad DMs.

Sometimes, some players shouldn't have a DM.  Those we can safely say are bad players.

_*That*_ is the "very basic social contract" of the game.  The DM gets to play the game he wants if he can find players for it.  The players get to play the game they want if they can find a DM for it.  Nothing else.  And certainly not "the DM must cater to the players or is, fairly by definition, a bad DM".


RC


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> The DM IS The guy who puts the treasure and the monsters there. The responsibility is certainly his to know the player's styles well enough to cater to them, or he is, fairly by definition, a bad DM.




Huh?

The process is:  I tell you about the campaign I'm DMing; you decide if you want to play.  If so, you create a character that fits the world.  If not, no hard feelings, but there's the door.

It's taken me somewhat in excess of 25 years to build my campaign world and it occupies a shelf and a bit full of ringbinders.  You can roll a character in about half an hour on a couple of bits of paper.  Mohammed has to go to the mountain, because the mountain will not come to Mohammed.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> If the players liked political intrigue and the DM decided his game would revolve around a month long dungeon crawl, he would be a bad DM.




Again, huh?  Does the DM decide where the characters go or what the characters do?

I've just spent several thousand words arguing that it's up to the players tell the DM where they go.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Likewise, if the DM knows that the players are going to rush in half-cocked and try to slay the evil (because that's what's fun for them) and decides to lay the smack down, it's a poor DM because he's not helping the players to have fun. They would be better served by a DM who is willing to give them big, dramatic, not-too-difficult combats. Four other people at the table shouldn't be forced to change the way they have fun because the DM isn't willng to give them what they want.




The players tell the DM what kind of game they want; the DM gives it to them and makes sure it's suitably easy (because, heaven forbid, the poor darlings might have to think otherwise); the players play it; then everyone goes home?

Why bother with paraphernalia like dice or rulebooks?  You might as well all go down the pub and have a few beers while the DM tells you what happens.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> DMs of older editions for me had significant of difficulty wrapping their minds around that very basic social contract.




I certainly do.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> How were my old DMs to know what an appropriate XP award was for our level and choose monsters we could clearly face?




They weren't to know and it wasn't their job to know.  It's not the DM's job to choose monsters for you to face.  It's your job, as a player, to be aware of what monsters are in the area and choose which ones you want to encounter and which you want to avoid.  If the DM is choosing the monsters for you, then the DM has too much control over your game.

That's why you talk to NPCs and you scout and you track and you move ever so carefully and quietly through the wilderness:  because the wilderness isn't balanced against you at all.  You have to work round the environment, not the other way around.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Could it be that this is what most of the audience actually WANTS out of the game? Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume people want more LotR and less Chainmail, given how many people know about Frodo and how many people have played Chainmail? Isn't this just the game meeting the needs of the audience? "Market forces" at work.




What the audience wants out of the game is fun.  Period.

What the audience finds fun varies along the gamist/simulationist/narrativist axes.  (I hate forge-speak with a passion, by the way, but it's useful shorthand here.)

Now I'll admit, my bias is strongly gamist.  I'm not particularly interested in telling a story.  I want to give you meaningful decisions and judgment calls to make, and I want to minimise the gap between each meaningful decision, and I want you to have the chance to show me your abilities as a player of the game, not just your character's abilities that we can resolve with a dice roll.

I acknowledge there are players who don't like that.  They want to measure their characters, not their own abilities, so they're matching numbers on their character sheet against the numbers on the DM's scenario booklet.  Objectively I know this for a fact; but I have no clue what's supposed to be fun about it.


----------



## I'm A Banana

RC said:
			
		

> I find it somewhat inconsistent to both claim that the DM should not be teaching what is rewarding within the confines of the game he runs, and also that it is the DM's fault if the players do not learn this. Obviously, one (or both) of these ideas cannot be true. Moreover, continuing to perform the same actions in the same circumstances, with a belief that those actions will somehow create a different outcome, is a bigger problem than playstyle or DM competence/incompetence.




I don't believe a DM should be teaching the players anything. We're all equals, we all know what we want, and if the DM cannot give the other four people what they want, the DM must change or be replaced because he would not be a good DM for that group.

Now, the players need to be flexible, too, and sometimes "nudging" them into a playstyle is definately beneficial (if they don't KNOW if they like political intrigue, but have never done it before, it can't hurt to slowly introduce those aspects). However, if they fail to be "nudged" (continue to choose the hack-and-slay over the intrigue) then it needs to be dropped, at least for a time, because either it isn't fun for them or the DM's nudging is not persuasive enough. 



			
				RC said:
			
		

> DMs and players both are better served by playing with others whose playstyles are at least compatible. It is not incumbant upon the DM to change playstyles, if for no other reason than that it is not incumbant upon anyone to DM. It is certainly not incumbant upon anyone to do the work of DMing in a manner that they do not enjoy.




Indeed, which is why both sides of the screen need to be flexible. The players need to accept that there are many needs the DM is addressing (including his own), so they may not get their favorite stuff every time, but they can still have fun and rely on the DM to provide their favorite stuff whenever he can (and if they're incompatible with the group, they don't need to be playing). The DM needs to accept that it is not HIS game, it is the GROUP's game, and that he will cater to the player's needs or be replaced.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I don't believe a DM should be teaching the players anything. We're all equals, we all know what we want, and if the DM cannot give the other four people what they want, the DM must change or be replaced because he would not be a good DM for that group.





1)  I believe, absolutely, that a campaign setting should contain things that are unknown to the players, and it is the DM's job to help the players learn about the campaign setting.

2)  I believe, absolutely, that a good DM perforce must teach the players what his or her style is.  This is not the same thing as converting them to his or her style.  However, they must have some ability to learn what is rewarded within a particular campaign world, and what is not.

3)  There is a big difference between what we want _right now_ and what we want _in the long term_.  Humans are full of conflicting desires.

4)  If the DM cannot give the other four people what they want, he would not be a good DM for that group.  If the DM can give the other four people what they want, but must change in a way that prevents the DM getting what he wants, they would not be a good group for that DM.

5)  When you say, "The DM needs to accept that it is not HIS game, it is the GROUP's game, and that he will cater to the player's needs or be replaced", I hope you realize that when some of us DM, it IS our game....we play with multiple groups within the same campaign world.  No player, IME at least, has ever tried to tell any DM that said DM is going to be replaced, so could he please hand over his binders of campaign world information?  I know, within a fair degree of accuracy, what _*my*_ response to such a suggestion would be.  There are also quite a few DMs out there who would be more than happy to allow someone else to DM for a while, or who are more than happy to have their friends play with other DMs while they continue their campaign worlds with other players.  

6)  I would never, ever, _ever_ accept any player who said ""The DM...will cater to the player's needs or be replaced."  That person would be shown the door before he removed his hat.  So, I suppose, he wouldn't have to worry about whether or not I needed replacing.

7)  Oddly enough, I have never wanted for players.  Go figure.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> We're all equals





We are all equals as people, but we are not all equals within the game relationship.

Rights and responsibilities go hand-in-hand.  The one with the most responsibilities has the most rights.  If that person wishes to give some of those rights to a group, that's his call.  If that individual can't get a group of players without giving them up, that's his fault (either due to lack of skill or due to location).

A good DM (and I am not talking about a great DM here, just a good one) can find a group of players, entertain them, and be entertained by them, without requiring "catering" to anyone.  

YMMV, of course.


RC


----------



## I'm A Banana

I see that I differ in a fundamental social contract aspect with RC (not the first time  ) and probably P&P, too.



			
				RC said:
			
		

> That is the "very basic social contract" of the game. The DM gets to play the game he wants if he can find players for it. The players get to play the game they want if they can find a DM for it. Nothing else. And certainly not "the DM must cater to the players or is, fairly by definition, a bad DM".




From what I understand about this, the "cookie metaphor" is useful. Someone says "Hey, I'm baking chocolate chip cookies, who wants some?" There are those who don't like it, who have allergic reactions, etc, but those who want some come and enjoy the cookies.

Someone says "Hey, I'm DMing a game, you want to play? Here's my rules." Those who don't like it or who can't stand it don't come and those who come enjoy the game.

But that's not the only way it works. Much more often, in my experience, it works more like ordering a pizza. Someone says "I feel like pizza, does anyone else?" Some do, some don't. With those who do, a consensus is reached about what kind of pizza. Maybe somebody REALLY LOVES anchovies, but knows no one else does, so doesn't make it an issue -- he's "okay with whatever." Maybe someone else is a vegetarian, so you'll want at least half without meat...but someone else won't give up their pepperoni, and his girlfriend is really in the mood for pineapple. You find out what people don't like, and exclude it, and eventually reach a consensus....and then one person orders it. That orderer needs to make sure people get what they want. 

The group decides they want D&D and what kind of characters and game it's going to be. Then one person amongst them DMs, making sure everyone gets what they want.

In both cases, the players end up getting what they want, being "catered" to, and a DM who wouldn't cater to those players (either because he changes his rules after the fact, or because he ignores what his friends tell him they wanted) is a bad DM. In the metaphors, he says he's cooking chocolate chip cookies and surprisingly adds nuts to it, or orders what he wants on the pizza without considering what others do.



			
				P&P said:
			
		

> The process is: I tell you about the campaign I'm DMing; you decide if you want to play. If so, you create a character that fits the world. If not, no hard feelings, but there's the door.
> 
> It's taken me somewhat in excess of 25 years to build my campaign world and it occupies a shelf and a bit full of ringbinders. You can roll a character in about half an hour on a couple of bits of paper. Mohammed has to go to the mountain, because the mountain will not come to Mohammed.




There's another process that you're ignorant of: The group decides they want to play D&D, they make characters, and someone steps up to DM them. The DM's campaign need not come first and, IMXP, doesn't usually.

It takes me about 15 minutes to think of 20 good hooks for fantasy adventure and I can randomly generate everything from encounters to towns. The mountain is the group, not the DM's campaign.



			
				P&P said:
			
		

> The players tell the DM what kind of game they want; the DM gives it to them and makes sure it's suitably easy (because, heaven forbid, the poor darlings might have to think otherwise); the players play it; then everyone goes home?
> 
> Why bother with paraphernalia like dice or rulebooks? You might as well all go down the pub and have a few beers while the DM tells you what happens.




Having a few drinks and playing the game offer different experiences. If group consensus is "I just want to roll d20's and kill goblins for a few hours," making them think is not going to meet their needs. 



			
				P&P said:
			
		

> They weren't to know and it wasn't their job to know. It's not the DM's job to choose monsters for you to face. It's your job, as a player, to be aware of what monsters are in the area and choose which ones you want to encounter and which you want to avoid. If the DM is choosing the monsters for you, then the DM has too much control over your game.




Wrong. They're just playing it a different way from what you're used to. A way that (gasp!) may actually be vastly more popular than the way you want to play it, and thus a way that D&D is going to cater to. 



			
				P&P said:
			
		

> I acknowledge there are players who don't like that. They want to measure their characters, not their own abilities, so they're matching numbers on their character sheet against the numbers on the DM's scenario booklet. Objectively I know this for a fact; but I have no clue what's supposed to be fun about it.




Fair enough. But if sales are the only barometer of what people like, they like (at least partially) D&D telling a story better than a D&D as pure dungeon scenario. And it's not that unexpected -- D&D draws from *stories* for it's genre, from movies and books.

Which brings me to the debatable point that D&D's changes since earlier editions have made it a *better* game, objectively, because it meets the demands of most of the market it tries to capture.


----------



## BroccoliRage

Well said Raven. The only point I disagree on is #4. I believe the players should behave like adults, and go with the flow. So should the DM. I don't think you should be GIVEN what you want, you should have to help CREATE what you want.


----------



## I'm A Banana

RC said:
			
		

> 1) I believe, absolutely, that a campaign setting should contain things that are unknown to the players, and it is the DM's job to help the players learn about the campaign setting.




Discovering the unknown is one of the near-universal aspects of fun in D&D. Agreed.



> 2) I believe, absolutely, that a good DM perforce must teach the players what his or her style is. This is not the same thing as converting them to his or her style. However, they must have some ability to learn what is rewarded within a particular campaign world, and what is not.




I'm not sure I follow. If the DM says at the start-up "This game will be fairly focused on diplomacy, which means that combat will rarely be a valid option for your characters," he's saying "Diplmacy will be rewarded, combat will not be...to succeed, attempt diplomacy." There's very little teaching going on there...merely a statement of intent.



> 3) There is a big difference between what we want right now and what we want in the long term. Humans are full of conflicting desires.




DMs are not psychologists, and players should not be putting on airs. If don't think you're going to ENJOY being a paladin, don't play one, and if you do think you're going to enjoy being a paladin, don't cry when faced with a moral dillemma (though feel free to no longer be a paladin). If the player plays a paladin, give him some moral challenges, he's ASKING for it.



> 4) If the DM cannot give the other four people what they want, he would not be a good DM for that group. If the DM can give the other four people what they want, but must change in a way that prevents the DM getting what he wants, they would not be a good group for that DM.




100% agreed.



> 5) When you say, "The DM needs to accept that it is not HIS game, it is the GROUP's game, and that he will cater to the player's needs or be replaced", I hope you realize that when some of us DM, it IS our game....we play with multiple groups within the same campaign world. No player, IME at least, has ever tried to tell any DM that said DM is going to be replaced, so could he please hand over his binders of campaign world information? I know, within a fair degree of accuracy, what my response to such a suggestion would be. There are also quite a few DMs out there who would be more than happy to allow someone else to DM for a while, or who are more than happy to have their friends play with other DMs while they continue their campaign worlds with other players.




I don't believe the illusion that DMs are special snowflakes. I know previous editions encouraged this perspective, and I believe that getting away from it will be absolutely better for the game as a whole, because it should be a game that EVERYONE in your group could DM if they have the inclination....in their own world, in a shared world, or whatever. If my friends and I were seeking a DM, I wouldn't hesitate at all to tell them "no" if they're not going to work for us.



> 6) I would never, ever, ever accept any player who said ""The DM...will cater to the player's needs or be replaced." That person would be shown the door before he removed his hat. So, I suppose, he wouldn't have to worry about whether or not I needed replacing.




No one should play a game where they aren't being amused (having their needs catered to). That person wouldn't need to be shown the door because they'd never walk through it in the first place -- it's not worth their time to walk through because it's not going to be fun for them. The DM behind that door has already *been* replaced.



> 7) Oddly enough, I have never wanted for players. Go figure.




And I have never wanted for games. Just because our approaches are different doesn't mean yours is better or worse.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Regarding the perceived inconsistency, Raven Crowking, what Henry said.

I would never suggest that a DM is obligated to run a game not to his taste.  But at some level everyone at the table is an equal "player" of the game which is D&D, even if one particular player is more equal than others at another level.


----------



## Thurbane

As a (sometime) DM, I would have to say I prefer a game style that is middle ground between Raven and Kamikaze - I don't force the whole "This is my campaign style, like it or hit the road", but neither do I fret about whether my players minimum daily CR, XP and GP requirements are being met.

I play a style where I have a definite vision of my campaign world and what adventure path to nudge players along, but (for instance) if the players made it clear that they would prefer some political intrigue over a dungeon crawl, I will do my best to incorporate such into upcoming games. In short, I try to make sure the game is fun for myself and the players, without compomising my overall vision.

I also freely ignore WBL and CR rules _("OMG, what about balance !!!1!11!!")_, but I never (rarely) throw a vastly superior foe at my players without some clear form of warning and/or an esacpe route.

Anyway, back ontopic to editions: does 3.X cater to awarding bonus XP outside of the CR system? For instance, in my own games, if I feel a player has done an exceptional job of roleplaying, made a clever suggestion that has greatly helped the party or somehow else contibuted to the game in a "above and beyond" type manner  I award bonus XP, (I should point out I use a hybrid of 2E and 3E when awarding XP). This isn't a loaded question, just genuinely curious if 3.X caters to this sort of thing.


----------



## Lanefan

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I see that I differ in a fundamental social contract aspect with RC (not the first time  ) and probably P&P, too.



And me, too, if you agree with your own post. 



> From what I understand about this, the "cookie metaphor" is useful. Someone says "Hey, I'm baking chocolate chip cookies, who wants some?" There are those who don't like it, who have allergic reactions, etc, but those who want some come and enjoy the cookies.
> 
> Someone says "Hey, I'm DMing a game, you want to play? Here's my rules." Those who don't like it or who can't stand it don't come and those who come enjoy the game.



Sounds simple enough; I fail to see a problem.



> But that's not the only way it works. Much more often, in my experience, it works more like ordering a pizza. Someone says "I feel like pizza, does anyone else?" Some do, some don't. With those who do, a consensus is reached about what kind of pizza. Maybe somebody REALLY LOVES anchovies, but knows no one else does, so doesn't make it an issue -- he's "okay with whatever." Maybe someone else is a vegetarian, so you'll want at least half without meat...but someone else won't give up their pepperoni, and his girlfriend is really in the mood for pineapple. You find out what people don't like, and exclude it, and eventually reach a consensus....and then one person orders it. That orderer needs to make sure people get what they want.
> 
> The group decides they want D&D and what kind of characters and game it's going to be. Then one person amongst them DMs, making sure everyone gets what they want.



In a perfect world, maybe.  Just maybe.  But the world ain't perfect, so I'll stick with Plan A, above.



> In both cases, the players end up getting what they want, being "catered" to, and a DM who wouldn't cater to those players (either because he changes his rules after the fact, or because he ignores what his friends tell him they wanted) is a bad DM.



So the DM is expected to tailor the game exclusively to the players, regardless of what the DM wants to run?  Sorry, bud, but if I'm going to do the work involved in designing and running a game, then it's gonna be the pretty much game I want to run.  Period.



> There's another process that you're ignorant of: The group decides they want to play D&D, they make characters, and someone steps up to DM them. The DM's campaign need not come first and, IMXP, doesn't usually.



You make it sound like DM-ing can be done at the drop of a hat, and in gonzo games it can, but to prepare any kind of cohesive world is a multi-month undertaking.



> It takes me about 15 minutes to think of 20 good hooks for fantasy adventure and I can randomly generate everything from encounters to towns. The mountain is the group, not the DM's campaign.



That's your style, and good.  I know I like to have things a *bit* more prepared, including a half-decent map, a framework of a religion system, and a vague thumbnail idea of history before diving in; never mind any houserules or quirks I want to chuck in.  These things take me a bit longer than 15 minutes. 

Lanefan


----------



## Thurbane

There's also the question of why you play - for my own group, I would say it's about 55% social interraction (and a chance to catch up with friends we don't often get to see much otherwise), 45% for the love of the game. Bearing that in mind, I really have no desire to see any players "walk" due to a conflict of interests.

I firmly believe, though, that there is definitely middle ground to be had - as a DM, I find I can generally keep my players happy and interested (which occasionally entails being a little flexible and shaping my "gameplan" to match a little better with the players desires), without compromising my overall vision of my campaign and adventure ideas.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> In a perfect world, maybe. Just maybe. But the world ain't perfect, so I'll stick with Plan A, above.




The thing I'm trying to get accross is that this is already the case in many groups, and plan A doesn't make much sense when the DM isn't creating his campaign in a vacuum, but rather is creating his campaign to meet the desires of the gaming group as a whole.

It's not just possible in a perfect world, it already happens in this flawed one. 



> So the DM is expected to tailor the game exclusively to the players, regardless of what the DM wants to run? Sorry, bud, but if I'm going to do the work involved in designing and running a game, then it's gonna be the pretty much game I want to run. Period.




Did I say that? No, I said that the players are being given what they want in both scenarios. In plan A, the players come *because* they want what is being offered, in plan B they express their wants and the DM meets them. 

The DM needs to worry about his own fun, too, but just as players can still have fun in a game where there are no elves (for instance), DM's can still hae fun running a game in which the combats are straight-up and simple because that's what the players mostly want.



> You make it sound like DM-ing can be done at the drop of a hat, and in gonzo games it can, but to prepare any kind of cohesive world is a multi-month undertaking.




I think this is a misconception. You *can* plan out your campaign world months in advance. Or you can build it from the ground up as the players explore. All you NEED for one night of gaming is an enemy and a goal and some obstacles to throw in their way. Everything else can be invented as you go along (and, indeed, leads very strongly to the effect of the players creating the story along with the DM). 

The idea that DMing requires months of preplanning is madness on the face of it. It can involve months of preplanning (if it's fun for you to create an intricate world), but it can be done in 15 minutes with no variation in quality.



> That's your style, and good. I know I like to have things a *bit* more prepared, including a half-decent map, a framework of a religion system, and a vague thumbnail idea of history before diving in; never mind any houserules or quirks I want to chuck in. These things take me a bit longer than 15 minutes.




And that's fine, but it is important to realize that the people who want to take months putting together a cohesive campaign world are very likely in a minority (not many people have that much fun inventing an imaginary world), and so for 3e to give advice and rules on things like random town generation helps more people to have more fun playing D&D. 



> I don't force the whole "This is my campaign style, like it or hit the road", but neither do I fret about whether my players minimum daily CR, XP and GP requirements are being met.




I don't usually fret about that stuff. It's all about if people are having fun. If they're NOT, say, they're complaining that the combats seem pointless, then I take a look at one of the sources of the problem (say, the CR of the creatures their encountering), and fix it.



> Anyway, back ontopic to editions: does 3.X cater to awarding bonus XP outside of the CR system? For instance, in my own games, if I feel a player has done an exceptional job of roleplaying, made a clever suggestion that has greatly helped the party or somehow else contibuted to the game in a "above and beyond" type manner I award bonus XP, (I should point out I use a hybrid of 2E and 3E when awarding XP). This isn't a loaded question, just genuinely curious if 3.X caters to this sort of thing.




I don't have my books on me, but I think this would fall under the Ad Hoc XP rules, and likely the Circumstance Bonus for certain skill checks (+2 for good roleplaying of a Bluff, for instance).


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

Lanefan said:
			
		

> And me, too...



And me...



> So the DM is expected to tailor the game exclusively to the players, regardless of what the DM wants to run?  Sorry, bud, but if I'm going to do the work involved in designing and running a game, then it's gonna be the pretty much game I want to run.



Me too... [is there an echo in here?]

(Incidentally, "what I want to run" changes, periodically, but I always tend to come back to an old-school D&D game -- it's kind of my "home base.")


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Anyway, back ontopic to editions: does 3.X cater to awarding bonus XP outside of the CR system? For instance, in my own games, if I feel a player has done an exceptional job of roleplaying, made a clever suggestion that has greatly helped the party or somehow else contibuted to the game in a "above and beyond" type manner  I award bonus XP, (I should point out I use a hybrid of 2E and 3E when awarding XP). This isn't a loaded question, just genuinely curious if 3.X caters to this sort of thing.




Yes. There's actually a fairly good set of guidelines as to awarding bonus XP, what effect it has on other rewards, and how you can adjust things to compensate.

For instance, if you award bonus XP for role-playing, then if you don't want advancement to speed up, you should lower XP for overcoming challenges. That sort of thing. 

3E explicitly sets out how much XP are generally awarded each encounter (and session) and notes how to alter them.

Cheeers!


----------



## MerricB

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I don't have my books on me, but I think this would fall under the Ad Hoc XP rules, and likely the Circumstance Bonus for certain skill checks (+2 for good roleplaying of a Bluff, for instance).




Note that the DC of the Bluff check is set by the role-playing efforts of the player in the first place! The story they attempt to sell gives the DC. Trying to sell a "reactor leak" makes the DC much tougher.

Cheers!


----------



## Kormydigar

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> If I interpreted Kamikaze Midget's comment in that manner, then I would agree that it sounds like foolish advice.  But I do not think that is he meant.
> 
> If a particular group consistently fails to use certain tactical savvy you or I might consider SOP, it is not a DM virtue to "teach them a lesson" in the big finale.  If you have not successfully gotten the point across before then, then either you have to some degree failed as a DM or there is a deeper conflict about play style best resolved while chatting casually with beers in hand.
> 
> I do not understand why you assume that the DM cannot use tactics.  One could get much the same kind of pleasure by choosing weaker foes and playing them to the hilt, rather than adopting the unhelpful presumption that a PC "deserves" to die if not played in the manner you are used to.




If everyone at the game is having fun then it is a win-win situation. When I DM I love to see the PC's defeat the opposition. There are no "teach them a lesson" encounters. The cool thing is my players have the most fun with the toughest of the challenges. The ones that are talked about most fondly are the ones where one or more PC's were incapacitated and they managed to pull a victory out of thier butts anyhow. 

I don't think a PC "deserves" to die unless he/she approaches an encounter in a certain manner but I do believe that PC's who insist on using only one tactic and then expect that one tactic to never fail (despite the evidence) should die until they grow a brain.

The problem is really one of numbers. I don't have any statistics but I think that there are a great many more player groups who prefer the "one tactic" playstyle than there are DM's who like to run this style of game.


----------



## Thurbane

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I think this is a misconception. You *can* plan out your campaign world months in advance. Or you can build it from the ground up as the players explore. All you NEED for one night of gaming is an enemy and a goal and some obstacles to throw in their way. Everything else can be invented as you go along (and, indeed, leads very strongly to the effect of the players creating the story along with the DM).
> 
> The idea that DMing requires months of preplanning is madness on the face of it. It can involve months of preplanning (if it's fun for you to create an intricate world), but it can be done in 15 minutes with no variation in quality.



I have to disagree again here - while quality is highly subjective, I can honestly say from my own firsthand experiences that I have had much more enjoyment as a payer when I can "feel" that the DM has put in signifcant preperation. And trust me, it is something players pick up on very quickly. If you ask a DM the name of the next closest town, or the name of the head of the mages guild, and he responds with "Um, err...Bob?" it ruins my suspension of disbelief and immersion.

Obviously this is totally subjective to the style of play you enjoy, but if we feel like a quick "out of the box" rumble with some baddies, I'd rather pull out my D&D minis game, or dust off my old Heroquest set.


> And that's fine, but it is important to realize that the people who want to take months putting together a cohesive campaign world are very likely in a minority (not many people have that much fun inventing an imaginary world), and so for 3e to give advice and rules on things like random town generation helps more people to have more fun playing D&D.



Again, from my personal experience this is simply not true.

Sure, "on the fly" gaming is unavoidable sometimes, but within every group I've played with in some 20 years, the DM will usually take great pride and enjoyment in fleshing out a believable setting for people to adventure in.

I can't speak for the community, but in my experience DMs who enjoy investing significant amount of time into their campaign world are in the overwhelming majority.


> I don't usually fret about that stuff. It's all about if people are having fun. If they're NOT, say, they're complaining that the combats seem pointless, then I take a look at one of the sources of the problem (say, the CR of the creatures their encountering), and fix it.



I can certainly agree on the first point - it is all about fun.

And for my own group, we have found fun in the middle ground between having the DM cater to every whim and fancy of the players, and the other extreme of a despotic DM with a "my way or the highway" approach to his campaign...


----------



## I'm A Banana

> I have to disagree again here - while quality is highly subjective, I can honestly say from my own firsthand experiences that I have had much more enjoyment as a payer when I can "feel" that the DM has put in signifcant preperation. And trust me, it is something players pick up on very quickly. If you ask a DM the name of the next closest town, or the name of the head of the mages guild, and he responds with "Um, err...Bob?" it ruins my suspension of disbelief and immersion.




It depends upon how well the DM can do it. Putting in months of effort is one extreme and 15 minutes is the other. Most will do somewhere in between....the important thing is to do how much is fun for the players and the DM.

And a good ruleset can help make it easier. A simple list of fantasy names and jotting them down helps with the closest town and the head of the mage's guild. And it's easy to prepare even while people are generating characters....someone's making an elf, so she'll need a village to come from, and there's that Races of the Wild book with elven village maps and adventure ideas and then MM4 has some drow adversaries and you've got a locale and a conflict. Which could be how she meets Ed's dwarf wizard....in the time it takes people to generate characters, a DM can generate a good one-night plot, and use the time in between sessions to build upon it.

But that's not really the point. The point in this sub-topic is that people should be able to DM without it feeling like work, and 3e enables that better than any other edition of the game, which makes it, in my view, a much better game, because having fun should never be work.  



> Obviously this is totally subjective to the style of play you enjoy, but if we feel like a quick "out of the box" rumble with some baddies, I'd rather pull out my D&D minis game, or dust off my old Heroquest set.




Do What Thou Wilt.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> It depends upon how well the DM can do it. Putting in months of effort is one extreme and 15 minutes is the other. Most will do somewhere in between....the
> important thing is to do how much is fun for the players and the DM.
> 
> And a good ruleset can help make it easier. A simple list of fantasy names and jotting them
> down helps with the closest town and the head of the mage's guild. And it's easy to prepare
> even while people are generating characters....someone's making an elf, so she'll need a
> village to come from, and there's that Races of the Wild book with elven village maps and
> adventure ideas and then MM4 has some drow adversaries and you've got a locale and a
> conflict. Which could be how she meets Ed's dwarf wizard....in the time it takes people to
> generate characters, a DM can generate a good one-night plot, and use the time in between sessions to build upon it.




This is completely alien to my experience.

Are you saying that your DM regularly creates fresh new campaigns out of whole cloth on the fly?  And if so, why?

My experience is that if I've created a section of a game world and it's actually any good, 
then I want to re-use it later.  And my experience is also that players appreciate the added value they get from knowing the campaign world.

I've got a city called Salm, of about a million inhabitants, which is extensively mapped and populated with what I like to think are colourful NPCs.  I invented the place about twenty years ago and I've been refining it since.

Nowadays, when my players go to the Cup and Blade on Cordwainer Street, they know where it is and what it looks like, and they know how unwise it is to be rude to the ladies of the night there, and when they overhear a conversation about an argument between two of the ruling Houses, they know which Houses are being talked about and some of the background.  

And they know that if they leave Salm by the east road, it'll be thirty-five miles across the badlands and they're likely to meet bandits.  And so on, and so on, and so on.

I don't need to "generate" a plot.  Everything's there in Salm for them.  If they want a dungeon adventure, then they know the route through the sewers to the Undercity.  If they 
want political intrigue, well, those Houses are all still stabbing each other in the backs at Court.  The temples are still at loggerheads, so there's plenty for the clerics to do, and of course it's one of those places where the thieves are always busy, and the good-aligned types are still waging a war against the slave trade, and ... well, you get the idea.  And that's just one city.

What's the benefit of ditching all this hard work and trying to make up a whole new world as I go along?


----------



## Hussar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> As a (sometime) DM, I would have to say I prefer a game style that is middle ground between Raven and Kamikaze - I don't force the whole "This is my campaign style, like it or hit the road", but neither do I fret about whether my players minimum daily CR, XP and GP requirements are being met.
> 
> I play a style where I have a definite vision of my campaign world and what adventure path to nudge players along, but (for instance) if the players made it clear that they would prefer some political intrigue over a dungeon crawl, I will do my best to incorporate such into upcoming games. In short, I try to make sure the game is fun for myself and the players, without compomising my overall vision.
> 
> I also freely ignore WBL and CR rules _("OMG, what about balance !!!1!11!!")_, but I never (rarely) throw a vastly superior foe at my players without some clear form of warning and/or an esacpe route.
> 
> Anyway, back ontopic to editions: does 3.X cater to awarding bonus XP outside of the CR system? For instance, in my own games, if I feel a player has done an exceptional job of roleplaying, made a clever suggestion that has greatly helped the party or somehow else contibuted to the game in a "above and beyond" type manner  I award bonus XP, (I should point out I use a hybrid of 2E and 3E when awarding XP). This isn't a loaded question, just genuinely curious if 3.X caters to this sort of thing.




Surprisingly, I agree with Thurbane on this.  Most DM's will fall in between the 15 minutes of on the fly and 25 years of preparation.  For the game to cater to the later would be suicidal for the game.


----------



## Hussar

> What's the benefit of ditching all this hard work and trying to make up a whole new world as I go along?




If I may ask, how long have you been gaming with the same people?

See, I change groups very frequently as I move a lot.  Actually, my current group of two years is about the longest I've played with the same people since elementary school.  So, anyone I play with is generally coming from all sorts of different backgrounds.  By and large, they couldn't care less about the history of my homebrew world.

In addition, I enjoy creating worlds.  The idea that I would stick with the same homebrew that I cooked up twenty years ago is alien to me.  Good grief, the stuff I create NOW is barely up to scratch.  The stuff I created when I was 10 wasn't worth the paper I wasted writing it up.

I've ALWAYS used a different world for every campaign.  I might bring some stuff forward from time to time, but, by and large, it's always new.  Why would my "alien invasion world" be used in my "Witchhunt" world?  Or use my Scarred Lands material in my Savage Tide campaign?  

I create new worlds at the drop of a hat.  99% of them never get much above the ground floor.  And, to tell the truth, it's a pretty rare duck IME that actually have campaigns that last that long.


----------



## Hussar

Sorry for the third post, but another though occurs.  P&P, don't you experiment with published settings?  Given the rather large number of settings that have come out over the years, I'm surprised that you've stuck to a single one.  That takes some sheer bloody minded dedication.  Kudos.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Hussar said:
			
		

> If I may ask, how long have you been gaming with the same people?




I started to DM in 1980 (player since 1978).  The earliest member of my present gaming group joined in 1982; the most recent was 1987, when the lady who's now my wife joined us.  (Err, there's also my son who's started to play, he was born in 1994, but that doesn't seem to count somehow).

We're now down to seven players plus me, although I used to DM for a dozen or so.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Hussar said:
			
		

> Sorry for the third post, but another though occurs.  P&P, don't you experiment with published settings?




Good Lord, no.


----------



## Hussar

See, P&P, that right there makes you WAY in the minority of gamers.  You've been playing with the same people for twenty years or so.  I would hazard a guess that only a very tiny minority of gamers are in the same boat as you.  Not that that's a bad thing, I'd love to be able to have a group that lasted half as long.  But, I'm thinking that the game has always catered far more to more fluid groups than that.

Even in 1e days we say a number of campaign settings published.  2e ballooned that number and 3e hasn't exactly seen a small number either.  So, to answer your question of why DM's create new campaign settings whole cloth, I would say that there are a few answers:

1.  People have fluid groups and members of each group have experience with a large range of settings and want to bring in bits from their favourites.
2.  People start new campaigns fairly often (research says about every year or two) and want to use published settings.
3.  There are such a huge range of choices out there that people want to give them a shot.

The idea of continuity in campaign settings is rather difficult.  To be honest, I don't care what someone whom I have never met, did five years ago in a campaign setting I have never seen before.  So, the idea of hearing stories about old PC's in campaigns I didn't play in doesn't really appeal to me.

Heck, I don't like canon in published settings and feel free to change it all the time.  Following canon in a homebrew would not appeal to me at all.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Thurbane said:
			
		

> And for my own group, we have found fun in the middle ground between having the DM cater to every whim and fancy of the players, and the other extreme of a despotic DM with a "my way or the highway" approach to his campaign...





All righty, then.

I, for one, think that you can say "My way or the highway" without being despotic.  If your way is broadly based, fun for a lot of people, and takes those people into account, you will have players.  If it doesn't, you won't.

With the cookie baking analogy, if you make anchovy cookies, good luck finding taste-testers.

With KM's pizza analogy, if everyone is chipping in equally, and the pizza comes in a box, then knock yourself out.  When I ran WLD, I opened the floodgates.  The players loved the idea at first.  In the end, though, the players decided they liked the floodgates under control.  Having an alternate universe Ghandi, some jedi, a time lord, and an animated Lego man sorcerer in the party just ruined suspension of disbelief for some of them.

BTW, the problem with "The DM must cater to the players" is that the examples given seem not to be "The DM must take the players into account" (which I wholeheartedly agree with), but rather "The DM must indulge or pander to the players" (which I wholeheartedly disagree with).

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> If I may ask, how long have you been gaming with the same people?
> 
> See, I change groups very frequently as I move a lot.  Actually, my current group of two years is about the longest I've played with the same people since elementary school.  So, anyone I play with is generally coming from all sorts of different backgrounds.  By and large, they couldn't care less about the history of my homebrew world.





I enjoy creating worlds, too.  But really, I think we both know that the more the DM knows about the setting, the better that setting breathes.  I mean, isn't that one of the strongest selling points of things like WLD and Ptolus?

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> Well said Raven. The only point I disagree on is #4. I believe the players should behave like adults, and go with the flow. So should the DM. I don't think you should be GIVEN what you want, you should have to help CREATE what you want.





Please note that #4 deals with fundamental incompatabilities.  If the DM cannot give the group what they want, or cannot both do so and have fun himself, he shouldn't DM that group.  For example, if you want things handed to you on a plate, you should never pick me as DM.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Thurbane said:
			
		

> In short, I try to make sure the game is fun for myself and the players, without compomising my overall vision.





Actually, our styles sound rather similar (although our overall visions may not be).  If you want to be pandered to, you need to seek a different game.  If you want the DM to tell you what to do, you need to seek a different game.  If you want a lot of options, and a lot of adventure hooks -- some of which it would be very unwise to follow -- with a DM who will not save you from the consequences of your choices, you might have some fun at my table.


----------



## howandwhy99

Reduce / Reuse / Recycle
Reduce the amount of prep-time by Reusing locations and characters and Recycling old plots into new plots (Npcs plotting their lives of course) 

I see vast degrees of difference between DMs who prefer Episodic, Continuous, or Freeform campaign styles.  Claiming that they have limited prep-time is a legitimate argument to me.  Personally, I'd not play in a non-freeform campaign again if I could help it.  But I respect others' right to DM however they choose.

How the community and publisher at large prefer to view/present it is another matter.  

Why the heck haven't they even presented Freeform Campaigns as an Option!?

At least Paizo put out a couple fairly modular adventures this past month.  If only they could figure out how to manage it with the AP too.


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I enjoy creating worlds, too.  But really, I think we both know that the more the DM knows about the setting, the better that setting breathes.  I mean, isn't that one of the strongest selling points of things like WLD and Ptolus?
> 
> RC




WLD has pretty much no setting.  It's a series of dungeon crawls linked with a theme.  Each region is pretty much distinct from eachother, to the point where pulling one of them out of the WLD and running it by itself wouldn't be terribly difficult.  There's next to no history for each region.  Plugging in nearly any background works.

As a setting, it's not terribly detailed.

Of course, this also assumes that the DM and/or the players actually care about setting.  Grounding players in settings is a difficult task at best and frequently players couldn't give a toss about the setting.  They want their adventure du jour and get on with it.  Most players aren't terribly demanding when it comes to making characters, but, they could also not care less about the 10 year history (never mind 1000 year history) of the kingdom they happen to be in right now that they couldn't probably name on a bet.

I'll be the first one to admit that I'm pretty burned out on high rp immersive gaming.  Bugger it, I just want to kill stuff and take their treasure.  I recently dropped out of a Shackled City game because the DM wanted to do an immersive game and I had no interest.  I've had players drop out of my campaigns for the same reasons.

Setting can matter.  But, it doesn't really have to.


----------



## LcKedovan

Crothian said:
			
		

> It's not the only reason.  3.x has enough problems and I have to imagine Wizards has learned a lot of how to do an OGL type game.  Any company that takes itself seriously is going to have money as part of nearly any choose they make.  But it is rarely the only reason.




True, I should have written that it was money would likely be the main reason. (as I alluded to later in the post. At the end of the day they are a corporate entity).

-W.


----------



## I'm A Banana

P&P said:
			
		

> Are you saying that your DM regularly creates fresh new campaigns out of whole cloth on the fly? And if so, why?




It's happened more than once, and it's actually one of my favorite methods to use. Sometimes I'll have a general world idea and tell the players that as they're creating characters ("Think: Mad Max + Fern Gully"), but I'm a huge fan of what comes out during improvisation.

The "fluid groups" idea is a good one, but for me it is the simple fact that no one's campaigns are special unique snowflakes, and an extended game of make-believe is not fun to waste my time on. I've found, in my dozen-or-so groups, that more people enjoy narrative-style play where they are the characters in a story that they can influence (I've just plunked groups down in a world before and they don't really pick up on any of the threads dangling around without significant goading). It's something like the improv game where you say a scentence, then pass the stick on to someone else who says a scentence, and so on, making the story up with different people as you go along.

I don't need the setting for any longer or in any more detail than it takes to tell the story. That's simply good writing -- there's no extraneous elements that don't have a reason to be there with regards to what the characters are doing. Once the characters resolve their main conflicts ("stop the empire from spreading," "collect the world-saving mcguffin," "defend the world from the incursion of dark gods," etc.) I can move onto a different world and a different story. 

That's actually part of the fun of D&D -- there's so much stuff out there to try, from horror to d20 modern to Conan-style to classic LotR-style to pulp adventure to religious epic to steampunk or cyperpunk fantasy....why would I EVER bother limiting myself to a single campaign world and what it could hold for me? And if I'm not going to use every aspect of the world, what's the point in spending months trying to flesh it out? It doesn't need to be fleshed out, no one cares about the exact number of miles, the names of the taverns are only important if they're important to the characters, and the only NPC's I need to know about are those that will interact with the party.

It's really not worth the effort for me (or many of my DMs) to invest months working on a world that will only get used for a time and then tossed aside.

So it is reduced down to what is needed to have fun in a night. There's characters (being created alongside the campaign world), there's conflict (where do these characters come from? What are their aspirations? What kind of world produced them? What kind of villains do these archetypes fight?), there's theme (We're fighting the drow, so we're going to go with a strong darkness/light theme, here. Vision will be very important, and illumination may save your life, but you should beware of burning to brightly. Spot checks, Listen checks, Concealment, Darkness/Light, Fire and Smoke will all be key game elements.)....all that's left is to get stats for an encounter or four, think of an interesting way to string them together (the drow are planning to summon a dark fiend to blot out the sun; the PC's must either stop them or the sun will be blotted out), and to hook the characters once they're genearted (a half-dead dwarf stumbles out into the elven village with ill news of the world below...).

After this, the world can be fleshed out even more between sessions as you think about the next encounters and themes you want, building them over levels and over time until you reach a climax where a flock of fiends are flying into the sky, and your party, astride the back of a golden dragon (whom you helped out in a quest getting to this point), soars up to slay them before they can close the portal to the Plane of Radience that is your sun.

It's one of my favorite methods to use because it instantly forms an intimate link between the characters and the world when you see what the characters want to accomplish and build that into the world from the ground up. Because storylines are a dime-a-dozen, worlds are a penny-for-six, and Generic Fantasy Names And Titles are the least of your worries, you can tell the story. I don't need to worry about where, say, Gnolls fit in in my world. If none of the players want to be one and they don't occur from the five thousand or so monsters that are in print, I don't need to flesh out their position. 



> What's the benefit of ditching all this hard work and trying to make up a whole new world as I go along?




What's the benefit on richly detailing six cities if the game is never really going to leave that one? So you can use it later? What's the benefit in staying in the same world, discussing the same Houses, adventuring to the same locales year after year? Sure, it's probably fun for you. But in my decade of gaming with my dozen or so groups, it would have been wasted work for no purpose other than self-amusement, and I've got better things to do with my time than stat up make-believe village mayors that never come into play in the six months or so it takes me to tell a story. 

That kind of sounded insulting, but let me state that it's obviously not wasted time for you. With more time invested in the world that your players are happy in anyway, you cut out other worlds in favor of going deeper into your own, which makes your players happy because they're familiar with the world and remember their own adventures in it. 

But I've lived in three cities in the last decade. I've graduated high school and college and moved to the east coast. I've played with newbies, with experts, with people from high school, with girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, strangers, and crazies. I've come on and gone off hiatus about four times (short hiatuses...). No one I'd game with now gives half a rat's tail about the plot of Laurasia to loot the shores of the Dragonlands. No one cares about the great Dwarf Wizard Feltgordin and his plot to splinter the elemental forces. No one remembers Serpontalis and the Thirteenth God which was summoned when one of my PC's accidentally sacrificed a room full of cowering commoners. No one remembers the leather-wearing biker-orcs. I can introduce them again, but, really why would I? I kind of want to do this drow-blotting-out-the-sun thing, now. After all, it suits my current group much better.

My world is not my baby, and my adventures are not precious snowflakes that need to be nurtured. They had their time, I'm done with them, they make good memories, and now I want to make new ones instead of reliving the old ones. I can, of course, poach from the old ones....Laurasia and the Dragonlands may come back into play at some point. But it won't be the exact same place anymore.



			
				RC said:
			
		

> With KM's pizza analogy, if everyone is chipping in equally, and the pizza comes in a box, then knock yourself out. When I ran WLD, I opened the floodgates. The players loved the idea at first. In the end, though, the players decided they liked the floodgates under control. Having an alternate universe Ghandi, some jedi, a time lord, and an animated Lego man sorcerer in the party just ruined suspension of disbelief for some of them.




I wouldn't want such a pizza. Maybe I'm a bit traditionalist, but I'm going to say "Hey, guys, let's keep this pizza vaguely medieval because we're ordering it from D&D, after all. Save Alternate Universe Ghandi for our comic Superheroes game."



> BTW, the problem with "The DM must cater to the players" is that the examples given seem not to be "The DM must take the players into account" (which I wholeheartedly agree with), but rather "The DM must indulge or pander to the players" (which I wholeheartedly disagree with).




No one likes to be indulged or pandered to. They want challenge, they want adventure, they want accomplishment, otherwise they probably wouldn't be playing D&D. But how you give that to them must be how they want it or you're a bad DM because you're not helping the other players of the game have fun. In your case, you state how they're going to get it, and if they like it they come on down. In mine, they state how they want it, and I build the game to hit those points (while at the same time hitting my own). We're both giving the players what they want, we're just doing it in different ways.

For me, because I've gamed with a lot of people who are in as fluid a position as me in life, there's not time to set up an open call for gaming or whatever. People move, school breaks come up, people start or end their education....people aren't going to come when I'm baking cookies if they've never had cookies before, either. 

And, because D&D wants to "hook 'em young," and "get new folks playing," this is the position that is going to be addressed the most heavily in the game. The man with the 25 year campaign really doesn't need advice on generating adventures. The guy who can find gamers at the drop of the word "D&D" doesn't need to know what it takes to please a diverse group of newbies and folks-who-are-giving-up-their-drinking-night-to-pretend-to-be-an-elf. But the kid who's heard of the game mentioned and picks up a DMG for the first time and wants to start an afterschool campaign at his house before Christmas Break....*that's* who 3e is (in part) written for. And "Spend four months developing a campaign setting" and "those who want to play will find your game" aren't really good advice for that archetypal demographic.


----------



## Lanefan

Hussar said:
			
		

> See, P&P, that right there makes you WAY in the minority of gamers.  You've been playing with the same people for twenty years or so.  I would hazard a guess that only a very tiny minority of gamers are in the same boat as you.  Not that that's a bad thing, I'd love to be able to have a group that lasted half as long.  But, I'm thinking that the game has always catered far more to more fluid groups than that.



We-ell, our crew has seen various people come and go, but the core of it has essentially been together since about 1981-82.  So count me as part of the "tiny minority", I suppose... 

And while I sometimes tinker with designing settings (I love drawing maps) just for the hell of it, if I'm designing something I know I'm going to use for a campaign it gets a lot of pre-planning, as I'm designing with the expectation that whatever mistakes I make I'll have to live with for the next 10 years or so.  And that "design" includes what areas to leave open for later filling-in. 

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> For example, if you want things handed to you on a plate, you should never pick me as DM.



Handed to me on a plate?  Hell, no...I expect to be hand-fed with a silver spoon!  Does that mean I can pick you as a DM? 

Lanefan


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> WLD has pretty much no setting.  It's a series of dungeon crawls linked with a theme.  Each region is pretty much distinct from eachother, to the point where pulling one of them out of the WLD and running it by itself wouldn't be terribly difficult.  There's next to no history for each region.  Plugging in nearly any background works.
> 
> As a setting, it's not terribly detailed.





As I'm sure you know, I'd fully agree that the WLD isn't well detailed, but it *is* a setting.  Not only does the DM know what's going on in the region he's running, but he knows what's going on in the adjacent regions, allowing for forewhadowing of characters and events.  While each location is not well detailed, each encounter is, allowing the DM to extrapolate from the whole to determine the details of a part.

Me, I'd have to do a lot of prep work before I'd run WLD again.

OTOH, I'd rather run/play in WLD than something someone pulled out of their keister in 15 minutes.  IME, those "15 minute worlds" are seldom very much fun.  (This goes back to the McGame and Homecooked Game analogy from another thread...I think it was Henry's.....You might sometimes like nothing more than a McGame, but it seldom comes anywhere near the Homecooked Game in terms of satisfaction.)  BTW, you can run Eberron or WLD as a Homecooked Game, just as you can create something of your own as a McGame.  The difference isn't based on setting per se, but rather how much effort is put into it.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I don't need the setting for any longer or in any more detail than it takes to tell the story. That's simply good writing -- there's no extraneous elements that don't have a reason to be there with regards to what the characters are doing.





It's pretty arguable whether or not that's good writing.  If you want the setting or characters to "breathe" (i.e., to seem at all real), there have to be extraneous elements to the setting.  For a good example, look at the original Star Wars movie.  The galaxy has a "used" feel to it, as though there were stories taking place before Luke came on the scene, which were important to the people in those stories.  A lot of that back story is developed in later films (Jabba the Hutt, Ben Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker), but it wasn't necessary to the original release.  We didn't "need" extraneous details like the other droids in the Jawa Sandcrawler, that they don't serve droids in the Mos Eisley cantina, or that one person (being?) in that cantina was wanted in seven systems.  But the details -- moisture farming, sand people, krait dragons, dinged up old landspeeders, holographic "chess" games, Luke talking about flying through Beggar's Canyon, and Stormtroopers talking about the newest model speeder -- are what make the film seem real to a great many viewers.

While it may be possible to move onto a different world and a different story, a well-conceived world can hold multiple stories, just as there have been six Star Wars movies (with variable degrees of artistic success), the Clone Wars Saga, comics, novels, a delighful Christmas Special, two Ewoks features, and Ewoks cartoon, a Droids cartoon, and two television programs (one animated and one live action) upcoming.

Certainly, if you are not going to reuse a world, there's a limited amount of effort you'll want to put into it.  Even so, good writing -- if it is to be of any length -- _*always*_ deals with extraneous elements, and IME those extraneous elements are (more often than not) what actually hook fans into the writing.

YMMV, of course.  



> I wouldn't want such a pizza. Maybe I'm a bit traditionalist, but I'm going to say "Hey, guys, let's keep this pizza vaguely medieval because we're ordering it from D&D, after all. Save Alternate Universe Ghandi for our comic Superheroes game."




But, you do realize that you sound rather like you are advocating exactly that, if that's what the players want?

There's so much stuff out there to try, from horror to d20 modern to Conan-style to classic LotR-style to pulp adventure to religious epic to steampunk or cyperpunk fantasy....why would I EVER bother limiting myself ?



RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> But how you give that to them must be how they want it or you're a bad DM because you're not helping the other players of the game have fun.





Again, I have to disagree.  DMs are not psychologists, and players should not be putting on airs.  If don't think you're going to ENJOY playing in a game, don't play in that one, and if you do think you're going to enjoy playing in that game, don't cry when faced with a dillemma (though feel free to no longer play in that game). 

If the player plays in a given game, give them the challenges appropriate to that game setting.  He's ASKING for it.

Doing so does not make you a bad DM.



> In your case, you state how they're going to get it, and if they like it they come on down. In mine, they state how they want it, and I build the game to hit those points (while at the same time hitting my own). We're both giving the players what they want, we're just doing it in different ways.




Excepting, of course, that if Bob changes his mind about what he wants, or joins the game hoping to change it into what he wants, and I don't change what I am serving, then I am a bad DM. 

Bull hooey.



RC


----------



## I'm A Banana

RC said:
			
		

> Certainly, if you are not going to reuse a world, there's a limited amount of effort you'll want to put into it. Even so, good writing -- if it is to be of any length -- always deals with extraneous elements, and IME those extraneous elements are (more often than not) what actually hook fans into the writing.




The thing is, the world can feel like it's breathing (and have hooks aplenty aside from the "main plot") without ever having to spend more than 15 minutes working on the setting. It doesn't take that long to throw out a bit of slang, a comment in the right "dialect," or to turn some innocent statement into a fleshed out story.

It just only happens if you're interested in pursuing it.

For instance, in the "15-minute world" where the drow want to blot out the sun, I have all the detail of D&D to draw upon. There's an elven village. There's a drow cult underneath. There's some dwarves to meet up with. Where there's elves there's magic, so there will be references to the "Conjurer's Academy," which now trains specialist conjurers. The dwarves have been fighting the drow, so they'll have a preponderance of clerics and paladins dedicated to stopping the demon-summoning threat...perhaps an Exterminator's Guild that specializes in vermin slaying (that's the dwarven rangers, who take favored enemy (vermin) and favored enemy (evil outsider) and favored enemy (elf), of course). I know the sun is to be a portal to the Plane of Radience, so perhaps the Underdark contains a portal to the Plane of Shadow, and I'm referencing other realms of existence. With the dwarven clergy being so strong, Moradin and the rest of the dwarven pantheon (a quick look at Monstrous Mythology while my players are generating characters tells me what gods would work well) will be part and parcel of it, and, of course, we have drow with spiders and the like.

Of course, where there's dwarves, there's goblinoids and giants to use their bonus on, so the old dwarves will reference the "Giant's War" as they hobble on shattered legs to the pantry to get their guests (who have come to them for help against the drow) some drinks. And maybe the old dwarf knows of an artefact that was left on an ancient battlefield that could help the party, or provide clues to what happened to the giants in the aftermath.

Because of how I want the climax in a few sessions to go, we know there are gold dragons in the world, too. Why aren't they helping instantly against the drow? Maybe they are having problems in that the Red Dragons' pet Githyanki have taken to allying with the drow as they summon creatures from beyond the planes. If they attack the drow, the red dragons will attack the elves, so it's "Mutually Assured Destruction." Of course, the PC's will have to be instrumental in neutralizing this so that the gold dragon can help them in the final moments. 

D&D already has a wealth of world-building hardwired into the system, and it doesn't take long to make it "breathe." It almost does on it's own, it doesn't require much thought to play to the archetypes and give the occasional tweak to make the experience something new. 

It doesn't have to take months to build a world, and a world built in 20 years is no "better" than a world built in 20 minutes. It's deeper, it's richer, it's more in-deapth, but it also comes with more baggage, limits your future options, and means nothing to people who haven't spent time helping you build it. It's more _cluttered_.

You certainly can get a feeling that a world is breathing beyond the PC's without having to ACTUALLY come up with a SPECIFIC name for the githyanki general helping the drow BEFORE you sit down and play unless he's going to come up. And if he comes up early, you make up a name, jot it down, and make sure when he comes up again you use the same name. 

As long as you're internally consistent, adding deapth is a cake walk.



> But, you do realize that you sound rather like you are advocating exactly that, if that's what the players want?
> 
> There's so much stuff out there to try, from horror to d20 modern to Conan-style to classic LotR-style to pulp adventure to religious epic to steampunk or cyperpunk fantasy....why would I EVER bother limiting myself ?




Hey, if the group conscensus really wants to play our comic Superheroes game, I'll gladly step aside and let Wayne (who loves to DM superheroes) come up with his 20-minute campaign. Certainly if they created these wacky characters, I'd assume they'd have more fun. And if they *really* want to play Alternate Universe Ghandi in D&D, maybe Shana (who enjoys getting wacky with game systems) will DM. And if no one can make up their minds, maybe we'll just play Super Smash Brothers on the gamecube tonight and roll some dice around later.

That's giving them what they want. It would certainly be poor of me to say "No, we're playing D&D, and you're not being Alternate Universe Ghandi because it doesn't fit the feel I want so you need to get out and let the rest of us play!" Because I would be told "Hey, you don't HAVE to DM."

Of course, it would be very odd of me to find someone who demanded to play Alternate Universe Ghandi when the rest of the group was okay with good ol' Medieval-esque swords and monks, too.



> Again, I have to disagree. DMs are not psychologists, and players should not be putting on airs. If don't think you're going to ENJOY playing in a game, don't play in that one, and if you do think you're going to enjoy playing in that game, don't cry when faced with a dillemma (though feel free to no longer play in that game).
> 
> If the player plays in a given game, give them the challenges appropriate to that game setting. He's ASKING for it.
> 
> Doing so does not make you a bad DM.




Correct. You're giving him what he wants. You're catering to his needs. You told him what you were offering, and he came to get it, and because you do your job well, he gets it and is happy. If he's NOT happy, then either there was some miscommunication, or he's having a bad day or whatever and then we need to look into what would be more fun for most people at the table, if his feeling was unique to him (in which case, no one cares if he steps out) or if everyone feels that way (in which case, the DM should probably step out). 

The difference may be I'm saying you should give the PLAYERS what they want. This != giving each individual player everything they demand, but rather meeting the needs of the group as a whole.

Of course, if you don't think you're going to enjoy a particular game, you could always go play something else. And if the group wanted to go play something else instead, fun would be had and everyone would be happy. 

The Game is not sacrosanct or inviolate, after all. A particular DM's setting is just one way amongst many to kill an evening.



> Excepting, of course, that if Bob changes his mind about what he wants, or joins the game hoping to change it into what he wants, and I don't change what I am serving, then I am a bad DM.
> 
> Bull hooey.




No, Bob alone doesn't have the power to dictate what the game is any more than the DM alone has that power. But if Bob can convince Erica, Wayne, Tim, and Burt that the change would be a lot more fun, and you don't change what you're serving (or find someone who will serve them what they want), then, yeah, that's bad DMing, because now the entire group will have more fun doing something else and you're refusing to change. If everyone who sat down for chocolate chip cookies finds out, after sitting down, that oatmeal cookies sound really good, you don't serve them chocolate chip and tell them to suck it up, you say, "Hey, I can do oatmeal, too." or "I heard Tim bakes some kickass oatmeal, let's have him bake instead."


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> No, Bob alone doesn't have the power to dictate what the game is any more than the DM alone has that power. But if Bob can convince Erica, Wayne, Tim, and Burt that the change would be a lot more fun, and you don't change what you're serving (or find someone who will serve them what they want), then, yeah, that's bad DMing, because now the entire group will have more fun doing something else and you're refusing to change. If everyone who sat down for chocolate chip cookies finds out, after sitting down, that oatmeal cookies sound really good, you don't serve them chocolate chip and tell them to suck it up, you say, "Hey, I can do oatmeal, too." or "I heard Tim bakes some kickass oatmeal, let's have him bake instead."





No.  It isn't my job to bake oatmeal cookies, nor is it my job to find someone to bake them for you.  Just to be clear, it isn't my job to bake chocolate chip either.  If I bake chocolate chip it is because I _want_ to.  If you eat those cookies, it is because _you_ want to and because _I want you to_.  

If it was bad DMing "because now the entire group will have more fun doing something else" then it would be "bad DMing" every time there was a new movie everyone in the group wanted to see.  You might not be the right DM for that group, or it might not be the right night to play, but neither circumstance makes you a bad DM.



RC


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## I'm A Banana

> No. It isn't my job to bake oatmeal cookies, nor is it my job to find someone to bake them for you.




Then it's not your job to be DM for those people who want oatmeal cookies, either. You're lucky you bake a popular flavor. 

Though I honestly can't understand a position that is so stubborn or proud that, when faced with four other people who say "We'd really like to do something else, like what Bill wants to do" would say "We're doing what I want to do!" Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, though (I certainly think I am).



> If it was bad DMing "because now the entire group will have more fun doing something else" then it would be "bad DMing" every time there was a new movie everyone in the group wanted to see. You might not be the right DM for that group, or it might not be the right night to play, but neither circumstance makes you a bad DM.




You would certainly be a bad DM if you still insisted on your group playing under you despite what others might want. Just as you would be a bad player if you insisted on playing your pet character despite what the rest of the group wants (Alternate Reality Ghandi in a basically medieval campaign, for instance).

To the point of how the new edition is designed, I don't think it is constructive at all to encourage forming DMs to be so invested in their own ideas that they are unwilling to try something new. A chef who only bakes one kind of cookies isn't a very good chef (though his chocolate chips may be the best in the world).


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Then it's not your job to be DM for those people who want oatmeal cookies, either. You're lucky you bake a popular flavor.




I would say that it is more than luck, but overall I agree.     



> Though I honestly can't understand a position that is so stubborn or proud that, when faced with four other people who say "We'd really like to do something else, like what Bill wants to do" would say "We're doing what I want to do!" Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, though (I certainly think I am).




If you would like to do something else, then do something else.  That isn't difficult, and is hardly inconsistent with saying that "If I run a game, I run the game I want to run."  If you want another game, you'll have to get someone else to run it.  And it is your job, not my job, to figure out who that will be, and to convince them to play the game you want.

Meanwhile, hopefully those four other people will understand if I continue on with my campaign using the remaining players and/or new players who are waiting for an open seat.

That seems pretty darn simple to me.



> You would certainly be a bad DM if you still insisted on your group playing under you despite what others might want.




How, exactly, would one go about forcing a group to play your game if they don't want to?  I'd agree that such an expectation would make you a bad DM, and a bit of a fool.    



> Just as you would be a bad player if you insisted on playing your pet character despite what the rest of the group wants (Alternate Reality Ghandi in a basically medieval campaign, for instance).




IMC, you wouldn't be a player, so it wouldn't matter.    

However, if all you are interested in playing is warforged ninjas, it wouldn't make you a bad player.....simply a poor choice for some games.



> To the point of how the new edition is designed, I don't think it is constructive at all to encourage forming DMs to be so invested in their own ideas that they are unwilling to try something new. A chef who only bakes one kind of cookies isn't a very good chef (though his chocolate chips may be the best in the world).




I agree that 3e makes a lot of scenarios possible that would have been difficult to set up under previous editions.  As an obvious example, "Modern people travelling to fantasy world" is a pretty common fantasy trope, but it's hard to do well under 2e or 1e.  It's easy under 3e.

However, having a consistent world is _not_ synonomous with being unwilling to try something new.  While it is true that making meaningful choices, perforce, creates limitations on other choices, that doesn't mean that your world is set into some kind of fast-acting concrete.  Nor does it prevent you from running one-shots in other worlds (or plane-hopping adventures to those worlds).

Do you really think that the time Monte Cook invested in Ptolus prevented him from exploring new ideas?



> The thing is, the world can feel like it's breathing (and have hooks aplenty aside from the "main plot") without ever having to spend more than 15 minutes working on the setting. It doesn't take that long to throw out a bit of slang, a comment in the right "dialect," or to turn some innocent statement into a fleshed out story.




I'd need to see it to believe it.    

A bit of slang or a bit of dialect isn't the same thing as a fully fleshed out world, IMHO.  Which is not to say that it isn't going to be fun or entertaining.  However, knowing that a thing will endure beyond a given campaign is actually a strength, and makes the stories told within the setting more meaningful.  If the heroes fail to stop the BBEG, and the next campaign begins with the BBEG in charge, then the players are going to take the consequences of their actions more seriously.  If the players know that whether the heroes succeed or fail, the campaign world will be put away, then their success or failure is that much less meaningful.  

Personally, that doesn't turn my crank.  But if you're happy with it, all the more power to you.


RC


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## I'm A Banana

> If you would like to do something else, then do something else. That isn't difficult, and is hardly inconsistent with saying that "If I run a game, I run the game I want to run." If you want another game, you'll have to get someone else to run it. And it is your job, not my job, to figure out who that will be, and to convince them to play the game you want.
> 
> Meanwhile, hopefully those four other people will understand if I continue on with my campaign using the remaining players and/or new players who are waiting for an open seat.
> 
> That seems pretty darn simple to me.




The only difference between how that goes and how the "consensus" goes is that usually I find that what everyone wants to do, the DM would like to do, too (maybe not as much as playing his own game, but enough that he'll go along with it).



> However, if all you are interested in playing is warforged ninjas, it wouldn't make you a bad player.....simply a poor choice for some games.




It would make you a bad player if you insisted upon playing it even when it wasn't appropriate, though. 



> However, having a consistent world is not synonomous with being unwilling to try something new. While it is true that making meaningful choices, perforce, creates limitations on other choices, that doesn't mean that your world is set into some kind of fast-acting concrete. Nor does it prevent you from running one-shots in other worlds (or plane-hopping adventures to those worlds).
> 
> Do you really think that the time Monte Cook invested in Ptolus prevented him from exploring new ideas?




Yes. It's not going to be exclusive, but the time you spend doing something is time you don't spend doing something else. Every moment you spend working on one campaign setting is time not spent working on a new one. Usually, people have a middle ground between "one campaign setting for 20 years" and "a new campaign setting every night" that lets them go at their own pace -- when they get tired of one, they try something else.

When Monte was working on Ptolus, other ideas probably ran through his head, but because of the focus something like that demands, it could only go in two ways: either make those ideas fit Ptolus, or let those ideas sit until he can make use of them later...and as time passes you get closer to burnout, closer to mortality, etc.

In other words, you can have ideas for other cool campaign worlds, but to use them you'd have to abandon the one you've been with for decades, so they wind up being put aside for later, dismissed, or made to fit into this campaign world. 

I think we agree more than we disagree, anyway. 



> A bit of slang or a bit of dialect isn't the same thing as a fully fleshed out world, IMHO. Which is not to say that it isn't going to be fun or entertaining. However, knowing that a thing will endure beyond a given campaign is actually a strength, and makes the stories told within the setting more meaningful. If the heroes fail to stop the BBEG, and the next campaign begins with the BBEG in charge, then the players are going to take the consequences of their actions more seriously. If the players know that whether the heroes succeed or fail, the campaign world will be put away, then their success or failure is that much less meaningful.




Not nessecarily. They strive to give the story a good ending for their characters. If their characters end poorly (not accomplishing their goals, for instance), they're not happy. Indeed, the "set in stone" nature of it can be even a bigger punch. If they fail to save the world, the world will *never* be better. There's no hope for the future. Time cannot heal this wound. It's permenant...failure will always be failure, in the story and in the memory of the players. 



> Personally, that doesn't turn my crank. But if you're happy with it, all the more power to you.




Well, most will find a comfortable middle ground between 20 years and 20 minutes. But the idea is that it should never have to be more work than you want to put in it. 3e has made some great leaps and strides toward making it easier just to pick up the books and go, and continues to do so (the new stat blocks, the NPC's in the MM4, etc.)


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

WizarDru said:
			
		

> The Soul of D&D?  _It's rolling a natural 20 when you're down to 3 hit points and the cleric's on the floor and you're staring that sunnavabitch bugbear right in his bloodshot eye and holding the line just long enough to let the wizard unleash a fireball at the guards who are on their way, because they're all that stands between you, the Foozle and Glory._




Wow.  You've nailed it.  

Sigged.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> It would make you a bad player if you insisted upon playing it even when it wasn't appropriate, though.




It would also make you a bad DM if you let that sort of thing continue.




> I think we agree more than we disagree, anyway.




Actually, I agree with you here.  I think some of our argument is essentially semantical.  Although, in some cases, I think these are still important differences.  For example, when you say "If their characters end poorly (not accomplishing their goals, for instance), they're not happy" combined with the idea that, if they're not happy, you're a bad DM, leads to the conclusion that _unless the PCs succeed, you're a bad DM_.  That might not be what you are trying to say, but it is certainly a logical extrapolation of what you _are_ saying.


RC


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## Hussar

Meh, as far as the setting bit goes, let's face it, Star Wars A New Hope is about as deep as a puddle.  Sure, you got sandpeople and whatnot, but, that's just window dressing.  None of it is ever fleshed out.  "No droids allowed" is never commented on.  Why aren't droids allowed?  Who made that rule?  What happened to make that rule?  

We will never know.  Nor do we need to know because it has nothing to do with the story.  It's setting.  It's a throwaway line that sounds good and helps to advance the plot.  Why do sandpeople live where they do?  Who cares?  Again, it's simply something that sets the setting and has nothing to do with the plot.  3d Holochess and threats of bodily harm are again nifty bits of setting, nicely showing us that we're "In The Future" and that the hairy guy is really strong, but, again, isn't exactly deep.

Come on, pointing to Star Wars as an example of depth of setting is ludicrous.  Star Wars is far closer to a 20 minute setting than a 20 year one.


----------



## Hussar

A thought occurs that illustrates the difference between our divinely windy short one and our chromatically challenged friend.  

Recently there were a couple of threads discussing the relative merits of a couple of modules - Temple of Elemental Evil and Keep on the Borderlands.  These two modules very nicely encapsulate the difference between the 15 minute campaign and the deeply prepped one.

Take Keep on the Borderlands.  It contains next to no information that is not pertinent to the PC's right now.  NPC's have no names, there is little or no history to the Keep, we have no one that the Castellan reports to, heck, we don't really even know what happened last week, let alone last year.  No NPC's are included that aren't specific to the adventure.  This is about a skeletal as it gets.

Compare that to Homlet.  Homlet has an intricately detailed village with just about every inhabitant named, given a history and family, and a brief blurb including motivations.  There's a ton of extraneous information in an attempt to create a fairly realistic (ish) simulation of a medieval village.  We have information on the village's history, it's geographic location in the larger world and even information on neighbouring villages and cities.

Is Homlet a "better" setting than Keep?  Not in my mind.  Did I have more fun in one than the other?  Again, not really.  I liked them both.  And played them both several times at various ages and under a couple of editions.

RC, I'm sorry, but I don't buy the idea that a campaign must be deeply detailed in order to be more fun.  I know you want to detail out the WLD more fully, and, hey, whatever floats your boat.  Me, I ran and run it pretty much as written and my bunch are having an absolute blast.  Running a shallow campaign has been the most fun I've had DMing in years.  All that "must have story and depth and character development and angst and..." stuff that came in with 2e has taken a FAR back seat to sitting down and playing.

For me, I have far more fun playing the game than spending time piddling about figuring out the nitty gritty details of a setting.

The original question asks about the soul of D&D.  To me, the soul of D&D is playing the game.  Not amateur theatrics, not prepwork, not anything else but sitting down with a group of people and playing the game.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> Come on, pointing to Star Wars as an example of depth of setting is ludicrous.  Star Wars is far closer to a 20 minute setting than a 20 year one.





The point was not that Star Wars is particularly deep; the point was that it was the details (the extraneous materials) of the setting that caught most of us as viewers.  There is a reason that all those cantina aliens now have names and backstories.  Things that are not immediately important hint at a larger worldview, and as pattern-seeking animals we are automatically prone to trying to determine what the over-arching pattern is.  I know that I have personally spent many an enjoyable hour discussing Doctor Who, and retconning events to create a pattern in which apparent contradictions prove not to be.  In the event that some form of over-arching pattern actually exists, and is discoverable, those moments of discovery can create intense satisfaction.

As far as Keep on the Borderlands vs. Village of Hommlet goes, both modules provided an incredible depth IMHO.  Although the characters in Borderlands were not named, and all of their interactions were not spelled out, there was enough information there for the DM to supply the rest.  It simply required work, for which the DM gained the flexibility to add the module wholesale to an existing world.  Heck, I recently ran the Caves of Chaos in 3.0, and it went splendidly.  Conversely, Hommlet is tied into the World of Greyhawk, and requires more work to disentangle from its setting.  You have to create new patrons for the various spies, for example....in many cases, you might want to rename characters (and the village itself) to mesh better with the campaign setting you choose (if not Greyhawk).  In other words, the Village of Hommlet required the same work as Keep on the Borderlands, if you wanted to place the module into a different setting.

RC


EDIT:  And, no, Hussar, depth in world building =/= character angst.  Honestly, lots of the 2e modules inhibited role playing IMHO.


----------



## Hussar

> both modules provided an incredible depth IMHO.




Ok, your definition of depth and mine are completely different.  How much incredible depth can a module provide in 25 pages, the vast majority of which is taken up by the combat encounters in the cave?  Good grief, the Keep is actually 6 pages long!  That's not depth, that's the exact OPPOSITE of depth.  That's a bare bones skeleton that has no flesh on it at all.  

The NPC's in the keep had no names, almost no motivations (other than a single evil cleric), no background, not even a physical description.  How can you possibly equate that with depth?

True, removing TOEE from Greyhawk might be difficult, IF you care about setting or feel that setting matters.  If you don't, then you don't have to change any of the details.  Simply incorporate them into your homebrew and away you go.  Since the homebrew setting is going to replaced next year anyway, it doesn't matter.  



> the point was that it was the details (the extraneous materials) of the setting that caught most of us as viewers.




Nope, it caught some of the viewers.  The rest of us were watching the plot and oohing and aahhhing over the finest special effects we'd ever seen.  Ask non-fans about Star Wars trivia like the patrons in the Cantina (and even the name of the cantina) and they can't name it.  Ask pretty much anyone who Luke Skywalker's father is, and they can.  

Plot catches people's attention.  Fiddly bits in the background catch fans.


----------



## I'm A Banana

RC said:
			
		

> The point was not that Star Wars is particularly deep; the point was that it was the details (the extraneous materials) of the setting that caught most of us as viewers. There is a reason that all those cantina aliens now have names and backstories. Things that are not immediately important hint at a larger worldview, and as pattern-seeking animals we are automatically prone to trying to determine what the over-arching pattern is. I know that I have personally spent many an enjoyable hour discussing Doctor Who, and retconning events to create a pattern in which apparent contradictions prove not to be. In the event that some form of over-arching pattern actually exists, and is discoverable, those moments of discovery can create intense satisfaction.




For the near-obsessive fans, yes, having every alien in the Cantina have a back story makes the world more enjoyable, because for near-obsessive fans, bits of trivia and lore are a lot of fun.

For those just interested in having fun watching the film, the scene is not a wealth of potential obscure trivia, but a moment where they can feel like Luke, when the aliens and the weirdness assault the senses. The Cantina is the moment when you start feeling like this is a big, scary place that Our Hero is about to step out on, a world filled with creatures the likes of which he (and us, as the audience) have never seen before, and definately should be affraid of in many cases. These aren't just humans in funny suits, these are scary beings from another world, and with how the Cantina is described, suddenly you're scared for the little farm boy and the old man. 

In the 15-minute setting, you don't have to worry about the backstory in your version of the Cantina, just about what effect you want it to have -- in this case, the effect of disorienting and intimidating the characters and the players (the audience). What intimidates people in a fantasy world? Giants. Goblins. Thugs of unknown skill. Giant swords. Barbarians. Maybe a half-fiend or a half-dragon. Dirty floors, pit fighting, a one-eyed barkeep with a hook for a hand...they all have their story, and maybe they'll even mention it, ("I lost me hand when I kilt me mum for a silver piece and a mug o' ale....hehehe, daddy didn't like that...") but unless somebody asks, you never have to know or tell...it's enough to "describe intimidating thugs." The back story, if the players are interested, can be made up as you go along, pulled from thousands of cliches of "tough thugs" bouncing around in your head already. 

But in my 15-minute setting, I'm not really interested in building obsessive fans. I'm not going to market toys based on this setting, I'm not going to write a novel about an obscure NPC, I'm not going to need that information unless the PC's decide it's important for some reason. So generally, the mood at the table if one of the PC's questioned the barkeep about his missing arm for more than a few mintues would be "Okay, can we get on with it? We're here to find a pilot, not get Scruffy's life story."



> Nope, it caught some of the viewers. The rest of us were watching the plot and oohing and aahhhing over the finest special effects we'd ever seen. Ask non-fans about Star Wars trivia like the patrons in the Cantina (and even the name of the cantina) and they can't name it. Ask pretty much anyone who Luke Skywalker's father is, and they can.
> 
> Plot catches people's attention. Fiddly bits in the background catch fans.




Different things will catch different people. If I *ever* had someone interested in the "obsessive fan" stuff about a setting I created, I'd be putting more work into them. Turns out, I'm really the only one who would even know about half of it, and it's not that much fun for me, so it's really wasted effort.

Instead, I give the PC's the *feel* they should be experiencing with descriptive words of a mental picture I have. I'm not building the world in abscence of the PC's, rather building it specifically *for* them (and for me, too).


----------



## Lanefan

Re: Star Wars:


			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Nope, it caught some of the viewers.  The rest of us were watching the plot and oohing and aahhhing over the finest special effects we'd ever seen.  Ask non-fans about Star Wars trivia like the patrons in the Cantina (and even the name of the cantina) and they can't name it.  Ask pretty much anyone who Luke Skywalker's father is, and they can.
> 
> Plot catches people's attention.  Fiddly bits in the background catch fans.



And we as gamers are what, exactly?  Fans, of course!  Fans of the game, and thus interested in the details.  Difference is, where in SW we have to live with the details given us, in D+D we can and do provide our own.  Modules like Keep on the Borderlands represent the surface of a pool that is exactly as deep as we want to make it. 

Lanefan


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Modules like Keep on the Borderlands represent the surface of a pool that is exactly as deep as we want to make it.




Welcome to the world of the 15-minute adventure design: it's exactly as deep as we want to make it (turns out, it usually doesn't want to be made that deep).


----------



## Lanefan

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Welcome to the world of the 15-minute adventure design: it's exactly as deep as we want to make it (turns out, it usually doesn't want to be made that deep).



15 minute adventure design is one thing.  15 minute setting/campaign design is another, and there's a *huge* difference between the two.

Lanefan


----------



## I'm A Banana

> 15 minute adventure design is one thing. 15 minute setting/campaign design is another, and there's a *huge* difference between the two.




Not really. You design an adventure for the night in 15 minutes. 15 more, you have an adventure for the next night. As you string these adventures together, developing the locales and the NPC's, you build a campaign around the adventures, the things mentioned there, and the events happening there. Viola! Setting!


----------



## Odhanan

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> If the players liked political intrigue and the DM decided his game would revolve around a month long dungeon crawl, and he is upfront about this, the players have to decide whether or not to play. Nothing more. This doesn't make him a bad DM.



A DM who doesn't want everyone - and I mean everyone - to really enjoy the time they spend at the game table isn't a good DM. 

You react like this, I guess my friend, because you are of the opinion that you just think about a campaign you want to run, propose it to potential players and from there, they take the decision to participate or not. Which is fair game, in all honesty.

We are talking about human beings, however. This means that players may have many different reasons to come play at the game table, and many reasons to actually enjoy coming at the game table. This also means, concurrently, that some players will have reasons to play that will override their dislike for this or that gamestyle - they might enjoy spending time with their friends, enjoy rolling dice and eating pizza, doesn't matter. But we're talking about real people with very different kinds of reasons to play. 

I guess I feel that you just want one sort of gamer at your game table. Which is perfectly fine by your standards if like you say, you're telling it upfront to whoever wants to play. But it's also your responsability as the host to admit that some people might just not enjoy some part of the game and rectify the aim so that everyone ends up pleased. 

You're doing some preventions up front, that's great! But that's just prevention, and some players will come to your game table eventually and find something they dislike. If by then they tell it to you fair and square, and you answer "_you agreed to the playstyle/campaign theme/whatever before playing, so too bad, man!_", then I think you're not trying hard enough to make everyone have fun around the table, or in other words, you are too rigid with your own rules while we are speaking of real, breathing, inconsistant sometimes, complex most of the time, human beings.


----------



## RFisher

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I'm going to call this out specifically, because I *have* seen this happen. Over and over again. 3e is making people better at running games, and many of the more recent supplements and redesigns are headed even further in that direction. The DM's chair is no longer a coveted seat of power and authority, a throne bestowed upon you by "alpha male" status and mastery of rules in obscure tomes. It's something anyone with an inclination can be good at. And part of the reason they can be good at it is because 3e provides a very solid foundation of how a game of D&D works...the foundation can be moved and altered, but it's a very good foundation.




(O_O) The DM's chair has never been such a thing in any of the groups I've played in under any system. Anyone could take it at any time & usually everyone did at least once. Everyone has done just fine, although we each have our own style.

Don't get me wrong. I _have_ experienced a bad DM before, but it's a rare thing & never a member of my regular group.

What I have seen is DMs _and_ players intimidated by a complex system that, for them, are no fun mastering. They would seldom--if ever--complain, but it was plain to see once I started looking. I saw it with Gurps. I saw it with Rolemaster. I saw it with Hero. I saw it with 3e. (Maybe even on occasion with OAD&D, though most people I've known have run OAD&D more like Basic & less by-the-book.)

That's one of the big reasons I tend to prefer less complex games these days. While _I_ might enjoy mastering the rules, I've found I have more fun when everyone at the table has a roughly equal grasp of the rules.

You would think that after a while I would stop being amazed that we all seem to have such different experiences of the same hobby, but it keeps happening. (^_^)


----------



## RFisher

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Later in the 1e period, and certainly by the time 2e came out, there was assumption that the purpose of the game is to generate Story, and the way to do that is for the DM to devise a Plot.  I blame Tracy Hickman, personally; he started it with Pharaoh and made it worse with Dragonlance.




I don't think the two styles of play you outline are as much reflected in reality as in print. People were running railroady--story-oriented games before _Pharoah_, & there are people who ignore all the provide-a-challenge-customized-for-the-PCs stuff in 3e. In truth--in my experience at least--the vast majority of us fall somewhere in the middle. We do a little of both, sometimes at the same time.

Even in the earliest days, I think TSR did us all a disservice by thinking that all published modules had to be very different from the actual notes they used to run their own games. While I appreciate many of the modules, I don't think any of them _really_ taught us how the originators prepared & ran games.

I think there was a further problem in that the authors & editors at TSR couldn't really know how to explain the game to someone who'd never played it before. It seems like there was a real divide between how the game was played by those who could trace a "lineage" back to Lake Geneva (X played with Y who played with Z who played with some TSR folks) & the rest of us who learned the game from the books alone. I think this explains a lot (although certainly not all) of the difference between those of us who see the earlier editions as flawed & those of us who don't.

But, I digress. The point is that, despite what you may see written in the books, these play styles don't fall along edition lines so much in my experience, & most of us actually play a mix of the styles.


----------



## Hussar

> Even in the earliest days, I think TSR did us all a disservice by thinking that all published modules had to be very different from the actual notes they used to run their own games. While I appreciate many of the modules, I don't think any of them really taught us how the originators prepared & ran games.




Now this I agree with.  I've said it before as well.  Compare the suggestions in the DMG to any published module and they are worlds apart.  The DMG says to keep magic rare and wonderous.  Modules come with so much magic that people NEEDED bags of holding to carry them.  The rules said that low stat characters are perfectly fine and lots of fun.  But every NPC has at least one 18.  Look at the characters from the Heroes of the Lance and you'll see what I mean.  So on and so forth.



			
				Rfisher said:
			
		

> Don't get me wrong. I have experienced a bad DM before, but it's a rare thing & never a member of my regular group.




Wow, are you lucky.  Then again, as I said, my regular group changed members every couple of years for the last twenty years or so, so, I've played with a rather large number of DM's.  I'd say of the last 10 that I played with, 2 were outstanding, 4 were fine, and the other 4 were extremely poor.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Odhanan said:
			
		

> A DM who doesn't want everyone - and I mean everyone - to really enjoy the time they spend at the game table isn't a good DM.





Maybe it's just that I know my limitations, and maybe it's just that I have played with so many people in so many different areas, but I have to say that IME the best way to ensure that everyone who plays at my table really _enjoys_ the experience is to be somewhat selective with just who that "everyone" is.

Sure, I'll give just about anyone a chance to play.  However, if the person's expectations are radically different from my own, or if the person's enjoyment of the game is derived from actions that detract from the enjoyment of others, then that person will not be invited back.  That seems pretty simple to me.  In all honesty, I think it is mandatory, whether I am the DM or not.  If my expectations as a player diverge widely from that of the group (i.e., the DM cannot give me what I'm after, unless he changes the game so that it is no longer fun for him and/or others) and I am for some reason unable to realize this on my own, I _expect_ the DM to tell me it isn't working out.  Life is too short to waste time on games you aren't _really_ enjoying, and I wouldn't be offended by someone removing me from a game if I was preventing real enjoyment.

Now, as previously stated, my DMing style can accomodate quite a few different player styles.  Which is lucky for me, because that means that I have a really large player pool to choose from.  Does this mean that everyone will like everything about every game session?  Well, obviously not.  I have bad nights, like everyone else.  I have played with groups that contain players more interested in talking to the creatures than fighting them, and also contain players more interested in fighting.  Obviously, not everyone is getting everything they want all the time.

What everyone does get, though, is the _potential_ to get what they want.  Assuming, of course, that they are at all compatable with my DMing style.  

If a player comes up with a character background that fits the world, I use it to heighten their experience of the game.  If a player is looking for a dungeon crawl, interesting locations to explore are not hard to find.  If a player is looking for political intrigue, there is plenty of that to go around.  As a DM, I set up situations -- a _lot_ of ongoing situations of different types -- and the players decide what to follow up on.

However, if Joe wants to do dungeon crawls, and Bob wants to do politics, it is incumbant upon Joe and Bob to strike a compromise.  I don't tell them where to go.  I don't simply "think about a campaign {I} want to run" -- I think about a _campaign setting_ I want to run, develop that setting, and then set the players loose in it to follow the hooks they are interested in and build the campaign they want.  This is, IMHO, a lot more satisfying than a 1-20 adventure path.  YMMV.

My primary concerns as DM are 

(1)  that the players have a lot of different hooks of different types, so that they may find things that they are interested,

(2)  that the players are challenged, with the potential of real loss and real gains, and

(3)  that the players walk away from the table with some experience of a world that is different than the one they live their day-to-day lives in.  In this last case, I like to throw in the potential for philosophical or (fantasy) religious debate, as well as bits and pieces that demonstrate how different our modern worldview is from earlier worldviews.

IME, these things make the game better for the players as well as for me.

However, if all you want to do is spend time with friends, roll dice, and eat pizza, and that is _consitently_ or _nearly consistently_ your reason for playing, then either you should have someone else DM or we should be playing a different game.  Monopoly is just as good for those sorts of nights, and I am happy to join you in a game of Sorry. 

While, beyond a shadow of a doubt, some players will come to my game table eventually and find something they dislike, it is not necessarily my job to rectify it.  It depends upon what they don't like, why they don't like it, and why it is there.  I mean, really, if you had a player come up to you and say "I don't like rolling 1d20 for attacks anymore; let's roll 2d10 instead!" would you necessarily change?  Would changing result in everyone ending up pleased?  In my world, elves are different than those in the PHB.  If a player wants to play a PHB elf, should the world change to accomodate that player?  Why is this any different than the 1d20/2d10 example?




> If by then they tell it to you fair and square, and you answer "_you agreed to the playstyle/campaign theme/whatever before playing, so too bad, man!_", then I think you're not trying hard enough to make everyone have fun around the table, or in other words, you are too rigid with your own rules while we are speaking of real, breathing, inconsistant sometimes, complex most of the time, human beings.





How about, "I'm sorry, but there are no PHB elves in this world"?  

Or do you imagine that, simply because I am DMing a game, that I have the players chained to their seats, unable to get up, unable to find a new game, unable to run a game themselves if they want something different?

For Cthulu's sake, man, the players are people.  They are quite capable of taking responsibility for their own needs and desires.  I run a game because I want to.  Period.  I run the game I want to run.  Period.  I don't have to run it; no one has to play in it.  If it works out so that everyone is happy with the running and the playing, then that is great.  If you think you'd be happier running your own game, or if you think you'd be happier playing with someone else running a game, both are perfectly fine.  I don't break friendships because you'd like more plane-hopping and Joe's running Sigil.  

I'd say, if your players are children -- or you are used to thinking of them as such -- then your point may be valid.  I like to believe that my players are able to act like adults.


RC


----------



## Hussar

> Maybe it's just that I know my limitations, and maybe it's just that I have played with so many people in so many different areas, but I have to say that IME the best way to ensure that everyone who plays at my table really enjoys the experience is to be somewhat selective with just who that "everyone" is.




I can get behind that.

I think something to remember here is many people, myself included, don't game with friends.  Err, that came out wrong.  What I mean is, the people I game with are just that - they're the people I see during game time.  I don't particularly interact with any of them outside of the game.  I'm thinking that RC is in a similar boat.  

I don't game with people that I go out for pizza with.  And I haven't in a very long time.  Which generally means that I get a game together, advertise that game, and then people show up who are interested in the game I have advertised.  The group self selects based on my initial proposals.  If someone doesn't like the game, that's groovy - different strokes and all that.


----------



## I'm A Banana

I'll get RC's back on this point, at least. You don't HAVE to want all human beings to potentially have fun at your table...like the man says, he knows his limitations.

Still, I do consider it a mark of great DMing to be able to take styles you aren't that enthused about and run good games with them because your group would like to do it. Certainly no one HAS to, but those out there who can are some of those "naturally wonderful" DMs.

+ his method is alien from my own experience, but I think we're cool with that by this point.   

I guess this has all come to the point that, while DMing education in 3e does make a distinct break with earlier editions in providing a coherent baseline, that this has improved the game, making DMs without the "natural knack" able to run enjoyable games anyway. And when you can sell a DMG + MM to not just one, but ALL members of the group....you're on your way to good design and good sales sense!

....and that this seems to give a different Player/DM dynamic attention seems to fly in the face of what those who are used to the older editions have seen, so it seems like something key to the game has been totally changed by the use of a reliable baseline.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I guess this has all come to the point that, while DMing education in 3e does make a distinct break with earlier editions in providing a coherent baseline, that this has improved the game...




I agree!

It's shown me what to avoid.


----------



## Odhanan

> Maybe it's just that I know my limitations, and maybe it's just that I have played with so many people in so many different areas, but I have to say that IME the best way to ensure that everyone who plays at my table really enjoys the experience is to be somewhat selective with just who that "everyone" is.



I absolutely agree. I'm actually filtering people at the game table by telling up front what kind of game I'm thinking about and having a briefing with the players before the campaign starts  (a session during which we discuss what we all want out of the game and start coming up with character concepts). 

My point is that, however you filter the players of the game, you'll run in a situation where there was a misunderstanding about the aim of the campaign, or simply the player plays the game not because he agrees with the playstyle but wants to enjoy the game with his friends and not be left out. 

My point is, players may come to play the game for other reasons than playstyle and in that case, gosh, every case, the game doesn't stop being defined in its nature and aims by just the briefing prior to the campaign, nor should the DM's listening skills just stop being used because decisions have been made before. It's better to bend afterwards and have everyone enjoy the game than just stick to the principles and have a game that excludes a part of the players, I think. 

Of course, this whole thing isn't black or white, and like many people have said, I think we all agree more than we disagree. That's on the details we're nitpicking really, but it's good. It makes our DM brains work for greater games in the end.


----------



## Thurbane

Speaking for myself, I never find creating a detailed campaign world to be "work", I genuinely enjoy doing it, even if I happen to detail an area players never get to visit.


			
				KamikazeMidget said:
			
		

> I guess this has all come to the point that, while DMing education in 3e does make a distinct break with earlier editions in providing a coherent baseline, that this has improved the game, making DMs without the "natural knack" able to run enjoyable games anyway. And when you can sell a DMG + MM to not just one, but ALL members of the group....you're on your way to good design and good sales sense!



Sorry, but I still can't really agree with that.

1E and 2E were not some the arcane, incoherrent bable of rules that it took years to master that some people are implying, IMHO.  I went/am going though the exact same learning curve (rules-wise) with 3.5 as I did with earlier incarnations...


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Speaking for myself, I never find creating a detailed campaign world to be "work", I genuinely enjoy doing it, even if I happen to detail an area players never get to visit.




I hope you'll forgive the rest of us (probably the majority of people) who don't enjoy spending hours building a world that will never have a use beyond self-amusement. 

It works for you, and that's good, but it cannot work for the majority of people, I believe, so something else needs to be there to meet that need. 3e helps more things be there.




> Sorry, but I still can't really agree with that.
> 
> 1E and 2E were not some the arcane, incoherrent bable of rules that it took years to master that some people are implying, IMHO. I went/am going though the exact same learning curve (rules-wise) with 3.5 as I did with earlier incarnations...




You misunderstand. It's not that 1e or 2e were poor. They were just *poorer at delivering what most people wanted to do with the game*. It's not that legos are bad, it's just that when people want action figures, they're a pretty lame substitute.


----------



## Hussar

> Speaking for myself, I never find creating a detailed campaign world to be "work", I genuinely enjoy doing it, even if I happen to detail an area players never get to visit.




I would say that the plethora of campaign settings out there and the enduring popularity of some of them points to a fairly large number of gamers who don't want to detail out a setting.

I used to spend hours detailing things only to realize after game night that I wasted that time that could have been better spent making the parts that did get played better.  So, now I am far closer to the 15 minute campaign side of things.  If I don't think it will get air time, I don't bother with it.


----------



## Thurbane

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I hope you'll forgive the rest of us (probably the majority of people) who don't enjoy spending hours building a world that will never have a use beyond self-amusement.
> 
> It works for you, and that's good, but it cannot work for the majority of people, I believe, so something else needs to be there to meet that need. 3e helps more things be there.



Sure, I can understand that not everyone would enjoy this. I still think I'm hardly in the vast minority though - I think you find most DMs who don't use a published camapign setting feel the same way I do.

In fact, I'm curious now - I might just create a poll too see.   


> You misunderstand. It's not that 1e or 2e were poor. They were just *poorer at delivering what most people wanted to do with the game*. It's not that legos are bad, it's just that when people want action figures, they're a pretty lame substitute.



Perhaps I did misunderstand - but now that you've clarified your point for me, I still diagree.   

I personally think the Lego/action figure example is just about as flawed as it can get. If I was to create an analaogy similar to Lego/action figures, I would call 3.X the "AD&D for Dummies" book, but that would just be unfair... Basically, it's like trying to say that Hip Hop is inherently better than Metal - there is no right or wrong, just personal taste.

I played 1E/2E for a good 15 years or more before I got into 3.X, and honestly, now having played them all, I can say I still don't feel that 1E/2E were lacking anything significant that 3.X mysteriously delivers. Again, not a scientific fact, just personal preference.

I can respect that some people prefer 3.X, heck, that's what I'm using these days myself, so it's not like I hate it or anything. But I just hate seeing older editions being bashed (not saying that's what you are doing KM, just in general).


			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> I would say that the plethora of campaign settings out there and the enduring popularity of some of them points to a fairly large number of gamers who don't want to detail out a setting.
> 
> I used to spend hours detailing things only to realize after game night that I wasted that time that could have been better spent making the parts that did get played better.  So, now I am far closer to the 15 minute campaign side of things.  If I don't think it will get air time, I don't bother with it.



That's cool, different strokes for different folks. Like I said, I find detailing my campaign world in my downtime very enjoyable and rewarding - I choose to do it freely, rather than feel forced to. I always leave enough time aside to fully prepare for the game at hand, though...


----------



## Crothian

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I hope you'll forgive the rest of us (probably the majority of people) who don't enjoy spending hours building a world that will never have a use beyond self-amusement.




Not really just self amusement, you get to share it with your friends and if you want use it for many years.  I've shared mine with many dozens of gamers over 8 years.  And with the net it is a lot easier to share ones world with the world.


----------



## Crothian

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> You misunderstand. It's not that 1e or 2e were poor. They were just *poorer at delivering what most people wanted to do with the game*.




What do most people want to do with the game?


----------



## Thurbane

Crothian said:
			
		

> Not really just self amusement, you get to share it with your friends and if you want use it for many years.  I've shared mine with many dozens of gamers over 8 years.  And with the net it is a lot easier to share ones world with the world.



Very good point.

While I don't personally publish my campaign material for use by others (yet?), I have a friend who deatils his own camapign world meticulously for exactly this reason.

Remember, Greyhawk, Faerun et. al. all started off as someone's "personal" campaign...


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Sure, I can understand that not everyone would enjoy this. I still think I'm hardly in the vast minority though - I think you find most DMs who don't use a published camapign setting feel the same way I do.
> 
> In fact, I'm curious now - I might just create a poll too see.




I think, on ENWorld, heavy as it is with DMs and Old Skoolers, you're going to get biased results. I think WotC, with their small armada of market research, is perhaps a better barometer. The fact that they catered to those who don't use a published setting by giving them an effective baseline, I believe, speaks well to the point of there being a big demand for it.



> I personally think the Lego/action figure example is just about as flawed as it can get. If I was to create an analaogy similar to Lego/action figures, I would call 3.X the "AD&D for Dummies" book, but that would just be unfair... Basically, it's like trying to say that Hip Hop is inherently better than Metal - there is no right or wrong, just personal taste.
> 
> I played 1E/2E for a good 15 years or more before I got into 3.X, and honestly, now having played them all, I can say I still don't feel that 1E/2E were lacking anything significant that 3.X mysteriously delivers. Again, not a scientific fact, just personal preference.
> 
> I can respect that some people prefer 3.X, heck, that's what I'm using these days myself, so it's not like I hate it or anything. But I just hate seeing older editions being bashed (not saying that's what you are doing KM, just in general).




It's not the best analogy....a better one might be to compare wooden trains to action figures. 

You don't think it's got something special because you've not had a need of what it delivers that is special, as far as I can tell. You enjoy doing for yourself many of the things 3e wants to do for you because WotC's research showed that not many people enjoy doing that (the "twenty minutes of fun in four hours" problem). Now that 3e does things that in previous editions were neglected or ill-explained, the game itself runs much smoother without a heavy-handed DM input.



			
				Crothian said:
			
		

> Not really just self amusement, you get to share it with your friends and if you want use it for many years. I've shared mine with many dozens of gamers over 8 years. And with the net it is a lot easier to share ones world with the world.




Except, he stated that he never got to use those secitons. So those sections he never got to use would only be used when he was inventing them, meaning the rest of the world wouldn't really care.

But you're right, the creative excersize can be it's own reward, and others could benefit from it, even indirectly.



> What do most people want to do with the game?




Judging by what WotC is doing, most people want to *play it*.


----------



## Crothian

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Judging by what WotC is doing, most people want to *play it*.




I'm getting on with age, so perhaps my memory is going.  But I do recall rather vividly that people did play the old games.  They played then and they play now, and I think that at the time those older editions were not any worse then today.  Now, if we just compare those rules from then to the rules today, one can get an arguement for it.  But one needs to look at the context of the game, and back then I never heard anyone having problems playing the game.  I hear more of that about 3e, but that's becasue of the net and not the system I would argue.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> I'm getting on with age, so perhaps my memory is going. But I do recall rather vividly that people did play the old games. They played then and they play now, and I think that at the time those older editions were not any worse then today. Now, if we just compare those rules from then to the rules today, one can get an arguement for it. But one needs to look at the context of the game, and back then I never heard anyone having problems playing the game. I hear more of that about 3e, but that's becasue of the net and not the system I would argue.




Oh, indeed, people played the game. But they also spent time working worlds from the ground up and re-working rules into house rules and variouos things that were NOT playing the game.

3e better enables people to bypass a lot of that and get on with the playing itself.

Just like wooden trains were perfectly fine, but they wouldn't let you re-enact your favorite fighting robot cartoon quite as well as action figures.


----------



## Crothian

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> 3e better enables people to bypass a lot of that and get on with the playing itself.




I understand, though I disagree.  We opend the 1e PHB and just played.  It was easy and simple for us.  Character options were a lot less so character creation was a lot faster.  Basically we rolled out attributes then picked a race and class that helped reach a concept and mach the scores we had.  The game has changed a lot since then.


----------



## Thurbane

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I think, on ENWorld, heavy as it is with DMs and Old Skoolers, you're going to get biased results. I think WotC, with their small armada of market research, is perhaps a better barometer. The fact that they catered to those who don't use a published setting by giving them an effective baseline, I believe, speaks well to the point of there being a big demand for it.



Maybe - maybe not. Perhaps I *am* out of touch with today's gamers.


> It's not the best analogy....a better one might be to compare wooden trains to action figures.
> 
> You don't think it's got something special because you've not had a need of what it delivers that is special, as far as I can tell. You enjoy doing for yourself many of the things 3e wants to do for you because WotC's research showed that not many people enjoy doing that (the "twenty minutes of fun in four hours" problem).



You do know that 1E and especially 2E did have the same type of  "insta adventure" generator tables, right? 1E DMG even had a whole section for a Random Dungeon Generator. 2E had richly detailed instructions how to create believable NPCs on the fly. This isn't a new feature of 3.X - admittedly, 3.X probably does have marginally more of this type of thing built into the core books.

If you are saying that 3.X lends itself more to "on the fly" gaming by the relatively simple and streamlined rules compared to earlier editions, I probably agree.


> Now that 3e does things that in previous editions were neglected or ill-explained, the game itself runs much smoother without a heavy-handed DM input.



And that's part of my problem with 3.X - it promotes a "DMless" style of play, where the DM is little more than an interface device between the players and the rule books. Maybe it doesn't promote it as such, but it's a much more prevalent attitude nowadays than before. Perhaps I may be misplaced in blaming 3.X for this advent.

I also agree that a DM shouldn't be heavy handed, he should be fair and balanced, but at the end of the day players need to realise that he IS final arbiter. Rule by democracy just doesn't work in a game like D&D, in my experience. A good DM will certainly weigh player complaints and wishes in his mind, but still needs to be free to overrule these in the name of game flow *when required*. I know that doesn't sit right with some people, but it is the way I (and my group) have always run things. Once again, this may or may not be directly related to 3.X rules. But my own belief is that the "copyright law" feel of the way the current rules are written lends itself to a "question all DM rulings" mentaility from a certain percentage of players.


----------



## Thurbane

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Oh, indeed, people played the game. But they also spent time working worlds from the ground up and re-working rules into house rules and variouos things that were NOT playing the game.
> 
> 3e better enables people to bypass a lot of that and get on with the playing itself.
> 
> Just like wooden trains were perfectly fine, but they wouldn't let you re-enact your favorite fighting robot cartoon quite as well as action figures.



I'm not trying to be a wise guy, but did you actually DM using 1E or 2E? It almost sounds like you are judging those rulesets by hearsay alone...sorry if you answered this already...


			
				Crothian said:
			
		

> I understand, though I disagree.  We opend the 1e PHB and just played.  It was easy and simple for us.  Character options were a lot less so character creation was a lot faster.  Basically we rolled out attributes then picked a race and class that helped reach a concept and mach the scores we had.  The game has changed a lot since then.



Sounds very much like my own experiences.


----------



## Hussar

> A good DM will certainly weigh player complaints and wishes in his mind, but still needs to be free to overrule these in the name of game flow when required.




See, that's the problem right there.  You've hit it on the nub so to speak.  A *good* DM.  In other words, for 1e and 2e to be fun, you need a good DM.  If you had a fair or a poor DM, you spent hours stumbling around trying to pound square pegs into round holes.  

This is the point that was brought up earlier.  With a significantly better ruleset, the DM doesn't HAVE to be good to have a good game.  An average DM can run a decent game.  Even a poor DM will run a half way playable game.  In earlier editions, having a poor DM was akin to having acid poured into your ears.  Add to that the fact that he was a roomate, made things just that much more fun.


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> See, that's the problem right there.  You've hit it on the nub so to speak.  A *good* DM.  In other words, for 1e and 2e to be fun, you need a good DM.  If you had a fair or a poor DM, you spent hours stumbling around trying to pound square pegs into round holes.
> 
> This is the point that was brought up earlier.  With a significantly better ruleset, the DM doesn't HAVE to be good to have a good game.  An average DM can run a decent game.  Even a poor DM will run a half way playable game.  In earlier editions, having a poor DM was akin to having acid poured into your ears.  Add to that the fact that he was a roomate, made things just that much more fun.



I completely see your point, I simply don't agree with it.

I don't concur that 1E or 2E were inherently worse rulesets than 3E, or that they needed harder work or more experience to DM in a manner that would be enjoyable for player and DM alike...


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> I think something to remember here is many people, myself included, don't game with friends.  Err, that came out wrong.  What I mean is, the people I game with are just that - they're the people I see during game time.  I don't particularly interact with any of them outside of the game.  I'm thinking that RC is in a similar boat.





Point of clarification:  The people I game with _do_ include people I see in other contexts.  Heck, they include my son.    

What they do not include is anyone who both (1) joined simply to hang out with their friends, and (2) complains about the choices they make.  See, my view is that we all be rather mature about the choices we are making, and accept the consequences of them.  And, hey, if you'd rather do something else, you are welcome to do it.  We can still hang out and eat pizza or whatever.

What I am making is a clear distinction between "DM" and "Babysitter".


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I think, on ENWorld, heavy as it is with DMs and Old Skoolers, you're going to get biased results. I think WotC, with their small armada of market research, is perhaps a better barometer. The fact that they catered to those who don't use a published setting by giving them an effective baseline, I believe, speaks well to the point of there being a big demand for it.




Sure.  Just remember that this market research doesn't determine what supplies the _best_ game, merely the game that _the most people will buy_.  In other words, market forces tend to deliver the lowest common denominator, not the highest possible achievement.

Mind you, I like the ruleset (with modifications), but I sure wouldn't use the "marketing survey" as a method of "proving" that it is a better game!


----------



## Crothian

Hussar said:
			
		

> This is the point that was brought up earlier.  With a significantly better ruleset, the DM doesn't HAVE to be good to have a good game.  An average DM can run a decent game.  Even a poor DM will run a half way playable game.  In earlier editions, having a poor DM was akin to having acid poured into your ears.  Add to that the fact that he was a roomate, made things just that much more fun.




A poor DM does not run what I'll call a playiable game.  An average DM will, but an average DM could in 1e as well.  A DM needs to be good to run a good game because the ruleset is not everything in a game.  A DM needs to do a lot more then deal with the rules.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Oh, indeed, people played the game. But they also spent time working worlds from the ground up and re-working rules into house rules and variouos things that were NOT playing the game.
> 
> 3e better enables people to bypass a lot of that and get on with the playing itself.
> 
> Just like wooden trains were perfectly fine, but they wouldn't let you re-enact your favorite fighting robot cartoon quite as well as action figures.





With 1e, I had a short house rules document (about 1 page).

With 2e, I had a longer house rules document (about 60 pages).

With 3e, my house rules document is _over 200 pages long_....in fact, it replaces the PHB and part of the MM.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Crothian said:
			
		

> A poor DM does not run what I'll call a playiable game.  An average DM will, but an average DM could in 1e as well.  A DM needs to be good to run a good game because the ruleset is not everything in a game.  A DM needs to do a lot more then deal with the rules.





Absolutely.


----------



## skinnydwarf

Remathilis said:
			
		

> <SNIP>
> 
> Older D&D is Exclusive: you are allowed only what I say. 3e is inclusive: unless you say otherwise, I can play X.
> <SNIP>




I usually just say "You can use the core books + [other books I allow], anything else needs to go through me."  Beyond some whiny players (who were whiny before 3e), I've never had a problem.  But that's just my experience.  I can see how the focus on "player choice" in the new rules can cramp a DM's style.  But then, I like the player choice- dwarf wizards and all.  So long as it's only choice from a few books.


----------



## Hussar

> A poor DM does not run what I'll call a playiable game. An average DM will, but an average DM could in 1e as well. A DM needs to be good to run a good game because the ruleset is not everything in a game. A DM needs to do a lot more then deal with the rules.




I disagree.  The rules in 3e will handhold you well enough that you can play a playable game, even if the DM isn't very good.  It may not be a great game, it may be pure hack, but, it's still playable.

Take this as a f'instance.  In the 2e PHB there is a section for playing priests of a specific mythos.  It states right in that section that the DM and player will have to sit down and hammer out the class.  Beyond that, not much guidance is given.

So, if I want to play a priest of Thor, I sit down with my DM and work it out.  If the DM is good, then no problems.  If the DM is bad, then I wind up with a workable character, a character that is overpowered or a character that is underpowered.  The odds of me getting a workable character are that much smaller and the odds that either I'm going to overshadow everyone else's character because I'm Priestzilla, or that I'm going to be sitting in the corner not doing much are that much higher.

In 3e, we write "Cleric of Thor" on the character sheet, give him Strength and Weather domains and we're good to go.  Good, bad or indifferent, the DM will most likely come to this conclusion.  And, because we're working from a ruleset that is functionally balanced, we can know beforehand that my character will be viable and will not play havoc with someone's game.

And that's just pulling an example from the Player's Handbook.  Never mind if I start tossing in Kits into the mix.  Or the 1e Unearthed Arcana.  Or start pulling goodies from Dragon.  Howzabout a 1e bard?  Make him a half elf and you get to bard PDQ.  Maybe I "roll" really well and get psionics.  

Because earlier rulesets had these huge campaign bombs that could really disrupt a campaign, the quality of the game hinged so heavily on DM ability.

I've been told time and time again that 3e takes power away from the DM and gives it to the rules.  I agree with that.  But, if that's true, then the abilities of the DM become somewhat less important (but not unimportant of course) to the quality of the game.  Seems like a logical chain.  DM has less direct impact on the characters due to the structure of the rules therefore the abilities of the DM have less impact on the game.

Yes, a DM needs to do a lot more than deal with the rules.  But, if the rules are an issue, then the DM needs to deal with them.  Thus the DM's abilities become more important.  When the rules are less of an issue, then the DM doesn't need to deal with them and his abilities become less important.

Now, how much less is a matter of opinion.  But, it will be less nonetheless.


----------



## Justin Bacon

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> With 1e, I had a short house rules document (about 1 page).
> 
> With 2e, I had a longer house rules document (about 60 pages).
> 
> With 3e, my house rules document is _over 200 pages long_....in fact, it replaces the PHB and part of the MM.




Wow. I'd love to see that. No, seriously, I'd love to see it. I don't suppose I could convince you to send it to me?

That being said, your experience is the exact inverse of my own: In previous editions, my houserules were extensive. My 3.0 houserules, OTOH, were about 3 pages long. My 3.5 houserules are about twice that length, partly through accumulation but also partly from fixing problems that the 3.5 revision created (Jump DCs, damage reduction, and cover bonuses).

Most importantly, however: If someone said, "I have a gun to your head. You can either choose to play D&D3x strictly by-the-book or you can choose not to play it at all." I would choose to play. If someone did the same thing with AD&D1 or AD&D2, I'd say "no, thank you" and walk away.


----------



## Crothian

Hussar said:
			
		

> I disagree.  The rules in 3e will handhold you well enough that you can play a playable game, even if the DM isn't very good.  It may not be a great game, it may be pure hack, but, it's still playable.




Same with the early games.  THe rules of 3e are not so simple as one can see in our own rules forum.  And if you want to bring in optional materiual I know 3e gets more complex then 1e since there is twenty times the material and enough of it is suspect that it can destroy a game.  
I know at age ten I had an easier time with 1e then my 10 year old nephew is having with 3e.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Justin Bacon said:
			
		

> Wow. I'd love to see that. No, seriously, I'd love to see it. I don't suppose I could convince you to send it to me?




I have shared portions of it with people on EN World.  Some of my reworking of classes and races is available here as well.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> Take this as a f'instance.  In the 2e PHB there is a section for playing priests of a specific mythos.  It states right in that section that the DM and player will have to sit down and hammer out the class.  Beyond that, not much guidance is given.





Priests are optional.  The 2e PHB also had a regular cleric.  3e has the option of creating new prestige classes.  Can you guess where this is going?


----------



## Thurbane

Crothian said:
			
		

> Same with the early games.  THe rules of 3e are not so simple as one can see in our own rules forum.  And if you want to bring in optional materiual I know 3e gets more complex then 1e since there is twenty times the material and enough of it is suspect that it can destroy a game.
> I know at age ten I had an easier time with 1e then my 10 year old nephew is having with 3e.



I agree. I can honestly say I found 1E and 2E no more challenging to learn than what I have 3.5E. I will concede that the rules in 3.5 are probably somewhat better organised and presented, but not the quantum leap in comprehensiveness and ease of implementation that is being implied by some.

I also think that the ruleset is a relatively minor point in determining the worth of a DM - IMHO, a good DM, average DM and poor DM will still be so despite the ruleset being used. I would even go so far as to say despite the game system being used, whether it was D20, GURPS, Vampire etc.


----------



## Hussar

> 3e has the option of creating new prestige classes. Can you guess where this is going?




But, there is a significant difference.  PrC's are entirely the responsibility of the DM.  There's absolutely nothing about PrC's in the PHB.  Priests were called out in the PHB, meaning that players might actually think that they are for playing.

Take another example then of how poor rules + poor dming can destroy a game.

In 1e, if my fighter in plate mail wants to jump a 10 foot pit, there are no rules.  A good DM will think, "Ok, 18 Str, and I want to get on with the adventure" and say, "Make a Str check at -4".  Not too difficult for the player and keeps things moving.

A bad DM might say, "No, you cannot jump in plate mail.  Spend the next hour trying to fumbly your way past this trap.  Hahahaha."

In 2e, by the rules, unless I had the jump NWP, I shouldn't be able to jump at all.  So, the bad DM does the same thing and forces the players to fumble about coming up with ways to bypass something that should take 23 seconds.

In 3e, the player looks on his character sheet, notes his jump check modified by armor and whatnot, looks at the PHB for the DC and rolls.  The DM isn't even involved.

I think that, right there, is what people object to.  The fact that as a player, I can resolve an action without any input from the DM.  In earlier editions, there were practically no actions I could take without input from the DM, which placed the DM very squarely on the top of the pyramid.  There was nothing I could do without his express permission.  3e allows me as a player to perform a fairly large number of acts, without any input from the DM.

And I think this scares DM's.


----------



## Crothian

Hussar said:
			
		

> And I think this scares DM's.




It might now, but it didn't then.  You seem to be using todays standards to judge older games.   Your examples show the game to be more player friendly, but not more DM friendly.


----------



## Hussar

Well, of course it didn't then.  Why would it?  The DM had absolute authority in the game and the game was structured so that the DM was integral to nearly every aspect of the game.  Why would the DM be afraid of that?  His word, his law.  Player looks in the DMG, smite him.  Player looks in the Monster Manual, the great flaming booger of god kills his character.

I'm not using todays standards.  What I'm doing is saying that todays game has removed some of the DM's authority over the rules, which also removes some of the DM's authority over the players.  Now, it hasn't given that authority to the players, that's where many of the critics get it wrong.  No, the authority now rests with the rules.

Because the authority now rests in a codified set of rules that is known by all players poor and average DM's can have an easier time by simply relying on the rules.  My jump example and the priest example show this.  I'm sure that we could come up with more.

When the rules are known by all players, then the game becomes less dependent on the one person to know or make up the rules.  This allows for better games by less able DM's.


----------



## Crothian

Hussar said:
			
		

> When the rules are known by all players, then the game becomes less dependent on the one person to know or make up the rules.  This allows for better games by less able DM's.




I see it as allowing for players that think they know the rules and feel like they can correct the DM when he gets it wrong.  That kind of pressure and experience can really make DMing 3ed harder.  Now, you don't only need to know all the rules you have to put up with players that think they do as well.  Players knowing the rules does not replace the responsibility of the DMing knowing the rules.


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> Well, of course it didn't then.  Why would it?  The DM had absolute authority in the game and the game was structured so that the DM was integral to nearly every aspect of the game.  Why would the DM be afraid of that?  His word, his law.  Player looks in the DMG, smite him.  Player looks in the Monster Manual, the great flaming booger of god kills his character.
> 
> I'm not using todays standards.  What I'm doing is saying that todays game has removed some of the DM's authority over the rules, which also removes some of the DM's authority over the players.  Now, it hasn't given that authority to the players, that's where many of the critics get it wrong.  No, the authority now rests with the rules.
> 
> Because the authority now rests in a codified set of rules that is known by all players poor and average DM's can have an easier time by simply relying on the rules.  My jump example and the priest example show this.  I'm sure that we could come up with more.
> 
> When the rules are known by all players, then the game becomes less dependent on the one person to know or make up the rules.  This allows for better games by less able DM's.



This was honestly never my experience in any 1E or 2E games I was involved with. Sure, we all had a healthy dose of respect for the man who ran the game and controlled the "known world", but there was never a feeling of our characters being little more than puppets in His "Great and Secret Show". Not to mention that in the vast majority of groups I played with, and had contact with, people took turns in being DM, so this whole myth of players having their hands slapped away from the DMG & MM is just that - a myth. What's the point of doing that if the person has his own copies for when he DMs? Yes, these editions might have suggested that the delineation between player resources and DM resources be more strongly enforced than it is now, but that was more in an attempt to help preserve the players "sense of wonder" than some nefarious plot device for DMs to keep players misinformed and under their iron fist.

Unsurprisingly, I suppose, it sounds like some of the players who are the most vocal supporters of 3.X had bad experiences with bad DMs under older editions. I (again) strongly refute the fact that 3.X makes mediocre DMs any more capable than they would have been in earlier editions.


----------



## Thurbane

Crothian said:
			
		

> I see it as allowing for players that think they know the rules and feel like they can correct the DM when he gets it wrong.  That kind of pressure and experience can really make DMing 3ed harder.  Now, you don't only need to know all the rules you have to put up with players that think they do as well.  Players knowing the rules does not replace the responsibility of the DMing knowing the rules.



I agree - 3.X has enabled the rules lawyers to a degree they've never had before. In turn, it is my firm belief that this has lead to an "arms race" of sorts, with the DM and players both trying to stockpile the most RAW knowledge to slap the other down with.

How many threads do you read along the lines of "My DM ruled such-and-such, is he right?" or "My player is trying to create such-and-such character, can he do this?". To me, this is entirely the wrong mindset to game with. Maybe if we were talking about tournament chess, but certainly not in a game where the primary objective is for all to have fun...


----------



## Hussar

> I agree - 3.X has enabled the rules lawyers to a degree they've never had before. In turn, it is my firm belief that this has lead to an "arms race" of sorts, with the DM and players both trying to stockpile the most RAW knowledge to slap the other down with.




I disagree.  I see 3.x as enabling rules gurus whom the DM can rely upon without having to have encyclopedic knowledge of the rules.  In other words, the game becomes far more cooperative than adversarial.


----------



## Crothian

Hussar said:
			
		

> I disagree.  I see 3.x as enabling rules gurus whom the DM can rely upon without having to have encyclopedic knowledge of the rules.  In other words, the game becomes far more cooperative than adversarial.




That depends on the players.  The rules don't make people cooperative or adversarial; that's a personality trait.  But even still, a DM that has to goto his players for the rules is not a good DM.


----------



## BroccoliRage

I dunno about that, Crothian. There's nothing wrong with occasoinally forgetting how a spell works and asking the player to remind you. It saves time, you won't have to look the rule up. Most of my players have not been interested in "winning" at AD&D as much as playing. Good players are an asset to DM's. I'm pretty faimliar with B/X to 2e, but when I'm having a brain fart and player reminds me of how a spell works, I don't think that makes me a bad DM. Besides, I encourage that from players. If I'm wrong on something integral, I'm wrong on something integral.

This is not the same as rules lawyering. And it isn't the same as relying on a player to know the rules. The games I run tend to be 1e AD&D as the sun with 2e AD&D, B/X, Hackmaster, Dragonfist, and The Arcanum in orbit. With all of those various similiar systems smashed together using 1e as default, occasionally I need to be reminded of things. I offer an expansive game with a TON of player options, so if i forget for a second exactly how many 1 hit die monsters are affected by the wizard's sleep spell (that happened yesterday) and I ask, that's pretty forgivable.

If I misunderstood your point, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be combative.


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> I disagree.  I see 3.x as enabling rules gurus whom the DM can rely upon without having to have encyclopedic knowledge of the rules.  In other words, the game becomes far more cooperative than adversarial.



Well, that's another take on it, yes.


----------



## wedgeski

Crothian said:
			
		

> ...But even still, a DM that has to goto his players for the rules is not a good DM.



I can hardly agree with that. First, I don't want an encyclopedic knowledge of the rules because I would rather spend my time on what I consider more productive pursuits, like inking in the details on my campaign or planning the next session; and second, it certainly *does* give the players a stronger sense of game ownership and participation if they know the ins and outs of their character's abilties a little better than the DM. I have a minimum water mark of rules knowledge that I would be disappointed and embarrassed to fall below (and it has happened on occasion), but above that level I really don't mind who comes up with the goods, me, or the players.


----------



## Hussar

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> I dunno about that, Crothian. There's nothing wrong with occasoinally forgetting how a spell works and asking the player to remind you. It saves time, you won't have to look the rule up. Most of my players have not been interested in "winning" at AD&D as much as playing. Good players are an asset to DM's. I'm pretty faimliar with B/X to 2e, but when I'm having a brain fart and player reminds me of how a spell works, I don't think that makes me a bad DM. Besides, I encourage that from players. If I'm wrong on something integral, I'm wrong on something integral.
> 
> This is not the same as rules lawyering. And it isn't the same as relying on a player to know the rules. The games I run tend to be 1e AD&D as the sun with 2e AD&D, B/X, Hackmaster, Dragonfist, and The Arcanum in orbit. With all of those various similiar systems smashed together using 1e as default, occasionally I need to be reminded of things. I offer an expansive game with a TON of player options, so if i forget for a second exactly how many 1 hit die monsters are affected by the wizard's sleep spell (that happened yesterday) and I ask, that's pretty forgivable.
> 
> If I misunderstood your point, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be combative.




Just because I always like to do something new, I agree with BR 100% here.


----------



## MerricB

As I recall, I ran a couple of rather successful original AD&D campaigns - well, mostly 2e campaigns - before the advent of 3e. What I think is particularly notable about those campaigns compared to my 3e campaigns was their levels - neither reached past about 7th level. I played AD&D to 13th level, but never at the higher levels with DM-created adventures.

When I look at 3e, I see a refinement of the adventuring experience at the higher levels of play. I've run original 3.5e games at 12th+ level. I am convinced that although the CR system is more wayward at high levels, it is actually of more benefit. The link between Hit Dice and danger is very tenuous at those levels. Having a value to indicate the danger of the monster is very, very useful.

There is also a benefit at the lowest levels. In one of my first AD&D experiences, I played a 1st level magic-user. According to the random tables in the DMG, my lone spell was Shocking Grasp. Needless to say, the result was not an enjoyable experience - especially after the ogre. I am extremely grateful to 3e for making low-level characters not "one shot wonders"... although my magic-user didn't even have the wonder about him.

One of the major benefits of 3e's unified skill system - and especially the codification of skills like Climb and Jump - comes in convention play with unfamiliar DMs or players. What they do is provide a standardisation of resolution that allows players to travel from one DM to another without needing to learn an entirely new way of doing things - which, in fact, was one of the reasons for AD&D in the first place, as even _combat_ in oD&D was nowhere near standardised.

There are too many who look at the skills and assume that they negate the need for thought. Nothing could be further from the truth. A rogue may have sneak attack, but rushing recklessly into the middle of 6 hill giants so he can sneak attack one will spell certain doom for the rogue; so too with skill use. (Many _Living Greyhawk_ adventures are investigative in their form; you might be able to gather a few clues with Gather Information, but you still have to put them together yourself!)

P&P mentioned that he'd been with his group for a long, long time. That is not my experience with the game. Although I've been involved with D&D since 1982 or so, the longest continuous player with me has lasted 5 years. This is not because I'm a bad DM, but because of the way of life in Ballarat. My players, many of whom are university students, graduate and move away. The older ones finish up their jobs and move away. Heck, I moved _to_ Ballarat in 1995, which removed me from the players I'd played with for the past 5 or so years!

In that context, with most of my groups (I have three or four, depending on how you count it) meeting once per fortnight, the assumptions of 3e work extremely well!

Neither AD&D nor 3e are particularly good rulesets to learn D&D from (although 3e is superior in that regard). Both really require the basic sets. I'm unconvinced by the 3e Basic Game -> Player's Kit -> Core Game transition, but OTOH, I see a few young boys currently learning from the core books and they're having a ball. I really enjoyed learning from the Moldvay Basic edition in the day, but that's a flawed transition as well due to the fact that AD&D and Basic D&D are different games!

Cheers!


----------



## Crothian

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> I dunno about that, Crothian. There's nothing wrong with occasoinally forgetting how a spell works and asking the player to remind you.




To me there is a big difference between not knowing a spell and having to goto the players to know how the rules work.  There is nothing wrong with the players knowing the rules especially how their own characters work.  But the general rules of the game, the basic stuff that applies to everyone are the rules I'm referring to.


----------



## WizarDru

Crothian said:
			
		

> I understand, though I disagree.  We opend the 1e PHB and just played.  It was easy and simple for us.  Character options were a lot less so character creation was a lot faster.  Basically we rolled out attributes then picked a race and class that helped reach a concept and mach the scores we had.  The game has changed a lot since then.




So have it's players.  In 1982, when I encountered something like the initiative system, which was just confusing to me, I jettisoned the whole system willy-nilly and used my own.  I did that with quite a few systems in the game.  I didn't have the wherewithall to bother trying to understand EGG's esoteric system for rule X, I just improvised and moved on...much as the DMG told me to do.  Understand, this is not a criticism of AD&D, but a feature.  When I was 14, I did things differently and the environment was different, too.  I really enjoyed the hell out of Missle Command on my Atari VCS...but it's a minigame to me, now.  Which is not to imply that AD&D matches the differences of Missle Command versus Shadow of the Collosus, but more that features that I would expect in a game today were not even thought of back then.  The games have changed in reaction to it's players innovations.  One of AD&D's strengths remains it's ease of customization.  

All of which is going a long way to say that I don't judge 3E by how I played AD&D, because a lot more than just the rules have changed in the years between 1987 (when I stopped playing D&D) and 2000 (when I resumed).



			
				Crothian said:
			
		

> But even still, a DM that has to goto his players for the rules is not a good DM.



I don't think I could disagree more.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Crothian said:
			
		

> That depends on the players.  The rules don't make people cooperative or adversarial; that's a personality trait.  But even still, a DM that has to goto his players for the rules is not a good DM.




This statement is endorsed by the PapersAndPaychecks school of DMing.

The idea that a DM can get away without knowing the rules is a bit pathetic, frankly.  It's like a judge who doesn't know the law.  Sure, there might be times when you have to check a detail, but you'd better have everything important sitting in readily-accessible memory.

Trying to DM a game without rules knowledge is like trying to use the internet via AOL.


----------



## Maggan

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> This statement is endorsed by the PapersAndPaychecks school of DMing.
> 
> The idea that a DM can get away without knowing the rules is a bit pathetic, frankly.




Cool. Whatever floats your boat(s). I'm content to be one of the pathetic and bad DMs of the world.   

I haven't survived playing (A)D&D since 1982 by not having help from my friends when I get  rules wrong.

So sure, my rules mastery may be lacking ... but I'm one hell of a story teller. And for my friends, that's what counts. And whether or not that makes me any better or worse DM, I honestly don't know.

/M


----------



## Crothian

Maggan said:
			
		

> So sure, my rules mastery may be lacking ... but I'm one hell of a story teller. And for my friends, that's what counts. And whether or not that makes me any better or worse DM, I honestly don't know.




There are of course exceptions to everything.  Like for instance I think Piractecat could do a damn good job DMing a game he's never read as long as he is familiar enough with the genre.  But I would not suggest that for Shaylon.  He can run a good game, but he needs to understand the rules because he can't make up for not knowing them.  So, if someone tells me a DM has to constantly ask his players for rules explanations, I'm going to think he's not that good of DM.  That is only judging him on that info though, he could be great at the other areas of running a game.


----------



## DestroyYouAlot

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Oh and as for d20 being modable?  Hah.  You start pulling on one rule and the whole mess comes tumbling down, based on the way the whole system works.  I as a DM for just about any previous edition of D&D can make a rule up on the fly or add stuff or take stuff away and as long as I'm consistent and fair, or at least am percieved to be by the players, it's all good.
> 
> That's just not so with d20.  Muck with some part of the code and the whole application crashes, unless you're willing to rewrite the whole thing.




(I'm just replying as I read, here, so this may have already been said, but

I really do not find this to be the case.  I've grafted several sub-sets of rules onto my 3.0 game, some from third-party publishers, some from online sources, and some out of my brain, and it's done nothing but enhance an already-enjoyable experience.  And it's the one, (mostly-)universal central mechanic that makes it as easy as it is.  I did this with 2e, as well, but I now have a much easier job of gauging the effect of my tweaks _before_ throwing them at the players.  The same has gone (so far) for removing rules, or replacing them entirely (see Rich Burlew's excellent alternate Diplomacy system HERE for an example).  

Of course, this is just my game, and YMMV, but I really think it's the same as it's ever been, i.e., you have to think long and hard before throwing a new kink into the engine.  But, IMHO, it's never been easier.




More to the point, I'll come right out and say it.  This entire thread is based on an unproved and (in my experience) invalid assumption:  That there _is_ something "wrong" and/or "missing" with the game as it currently stands, or that the "soul" has, at some indeterminate point, gone out of the game.  Data does not compute, program is null and void, syntax error.  I don't know what group you're playing with, but mine's doing fine, thanks.  And, you know what?  How many people on this forum are currently playing OD&D, 1e, freakin' Chainmail even, and having a great time at it?  Lots, last time I checked?  So what's the problem?  I don't anticipate 4e being something I feel the need to "upgrade" to, and that's fine - I still have my books from 3e and every edition leading up to it, and - until WOTC comes to my house and takes them away - I can play whatever edition I want, for free, until the end of time.  There Is No Problem.  Thank you.


----------



## ghul

Maggan said:
			
		

> Cool. Whatever floats your boat(s). I'm content to be one of the pathetic and bad DMs of the world.
> 
> I haven't survived playing (A)D&D since 1982 by not having help from my friends when I get  rules wrong.
> 
> So sure, my rules mastery may be lacking ... but I'm one hell of a story teller. And for my friends, that's what counts. And whether or not that makes me any better or worse DM, I honestly don't know.
> 
> /M




Storyteller?  Egads. Storytellers and amateur thespianiasm equals boring D&D in my opinion, but of course YMMV. The DM need only set the table, where I come from.  Let the actions of the characters dictate the course of the "story".  Otherwise, the players feel as though the actions of their characters have little bearing on the outcome of events.  

That being said, I too proved to be a lacking DM when it came to mastery of the rules...when I was DMing 3e.  I found myself a judge often requesting laws from a few of the lawyers in my court, this due to the subsets of subsets of subsets of laws.  

But since about a year ago, when I concluded my tenure as a 3e DM and started a new game (a hybrid of C&C and AD&D 1e), I have resumed control, and all is right in the universe.  I am, once again, Charles in Charge, and in these Warz of Editions I have recaptured the pesky soul of D&D and hold it in my grasp!    

--Ghul


----------



## Lanefan

ghul said:
			
		

> Storyteller?  Egads. Storytellers and amateur thespianiasm equals boring D&D in my opinion, but of course YMMV. The DM need only set the table, where I come from.  Let the actions of the characters dictate the course of the "story".  Otherwise, the players feel as though the actions of their characters have little bearing on the outcome of events.



Well, someone's got to tell the story and do the acting...and if the players don't do it (in my experience, most don't) then it falls to the DM.  I fail to see a problem... 

And to respond to an earlier post: that the game now needs rules gurus to interpret fine points of law is to me a Bad Thing, reminiscent more of Magic - which needs it - than D+D, which shouldn't.

Yes, there's always been things like "Sage Advice" column in Drag-Mag, the difference there was I and others could (and often did) choose to ignore their *interpretation* of a given situation; the column was called Sage *Advice*, not Rules Q+A.  Now, there seems to be more of a sense from WotC of This Is How It Must Be Ruled than ever came out of TSR.

Lanefan


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> But, there is a significant difference.  PrC's are entirely the responsibility of the DM.  There's absolutely nothing about PrC's in the PHB.  Priests were called out in the PHB, meaning that players might actually think that they are for playing.




Let me see if I understand where you are coming from.

(1)  One of the really great things about 3.x is that the players can know the rules as well as the DM, and the DMG is not off-limits to the players.

(2)  Optional prestige classes cannot cause the problems that optional priest classes can cause, because one appears in the DMG and the other appears in the PHB.

See, I still have a hard time with both (1) and (2) being true.  Of course, (2) is only even remotely true if you consider the Core Rules only.  Prestige classes and alternate classes appear hither and yon in all sorts of splatbooks.

You argue that "the authority now rests in a codified set of rules that is known by all players," but somehow in this circumstance that isn't true?  I hope you will understand, given the circumstances, that I see approximately 0% (with a .1-.5% deviation) difference between the two.  3.X might offer a wonderful ruleset, but there is absolutely no reason to trash previous editions on this basis.  I would go so far as to say that the variable priest was one of the best things in 2e, and that only the addition of prestige classes prevented dropping it from being a major gaffe in 3e.



> In 3e, the player looks on his character sheet, notes his jump check modified by armor and whatnot, looks at the PHB for the DC and rolls.  The DM isn't even involved.




That, BTW, is an illusion.  Simply because ordinary circumstance modifiers and DCs exist in the PHB, you cannot automatically conclude that you are making a check under ordinary circumstances.  In other words, because the PHB lists a DC, you cannot assume that the DC listed is correct in any given in-game jump.

And this is, exactly, the attitude that causes all of those "My DM said X, is he right?" threads that spring up on EN World (and that you, apparently, deny the existance of when Thurbane brought them up).  

3.X offers an _illusion_ that the rules are known by all players -- the DM may create new modifiers, new DCs, new monsters, new spells, new prestige classes, etc.  Even if you know the basic rules, you do not necessarily know all the rules that apply to any given situation, nor do you always know _which_ of the rules you know apply to a given situation.  

The 3.X ruleset may, indeed, raise the lowest common denominator...allowing poor DMs to run mediocre games.  OTOH, if you allow the attitude that "todays game has removed some of the DM's authority over the rules, which also removes some of the DM's authority over the players.....No, the authority now rests with the rules." to fester, you also lower the highest common denominator.  The attitude and the ruleset are not the same thing, and you do not require one to have the other.


RC


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Well, someone's got to tell the story and do the acting...




Why?

_You_ might treat D&D as an exercise in amateur theatrics or round-robin storytelling, but _I_ don't have to.


----------



## Michael Morris

Allow me a moment to troll.  I have come to despise 1e/2e.  Perhaps my betrayal by the last group I played that edition with colors my perceptions of it, but there are a lot of things within the system itself I find intolerable.  Dusk for 2e was 397 pages long and 250 pages of that was a rewrite of the Player's Option system from the ground up.  Dusk for 3e is 320 pages long and 1 page of it addresses a minor flavor tweak to the 3.5e rules - all the rest is material that builds upon the foundation of 3.5e.

So although some of you will view this as a troll - my earnest opinion of 1e/2e is that it was fun while there was nothing better, but in hindsight it is a horrid Frankenstien's monster of a 'system' that only someone completely blinded by nostalgia can love - certainly not me. I doubt I can say anything to dissuade the grognards so I no longer try - these days when I tell a prospective player my game is 3.5e and they say they prefer 1e or 2e my response is 'too bad - I run 3.5e'

I also view any claims that the current game isn't D&D as infantile moaning by persons unable to accept the passage of time.  I mean, hell, the Commodore VIC-20 was a fun system to learn about computers on, but I sure as hell don't want to use one today, not even emulated on a stronger machine.


----------



## Thurbane

WizarDru said:
			
		

> I don't think I could disagree more.



I don't think he's saying that any DM who ever checks with a player for clarification is a bad DM, but rather a DM who constantly misunderstands basic rules and needs to check with players on every minute detail...


----------



## Ranes

Spoony Bard said:
			
		

> I doubt I can say anything to dissuade the grognards so I no longer try.




Some grognards agree with every word you posted. But you're right. Let contrary grognards lie.


----------



## Thurbane

ghul said:
			
		

> Storyteller?  Egads. Storytellers and amateur thespianiasm equals boring D&D in my opinion, but of course YMMV. The DM need only set the table, where I come from.  Let the actions of the characters dictate the course of the "story".  Otherwise, the players feel as though the actions of their characters have little bearing on the outcome of events.



Hmm, this seems to be a growing sentiment from what I read. Seems like many players today find a DM to be a "neccessary evil" rather than the guy they all thank for creating a richly detailed and consistent setting for them to adventure in. Any DM who enjoys storytelling nowadays seems to be accused of "railroading".

I honestly believe it's more of that "video game" mentaility creeping in. Some people now are used to generating a character, then running around within the bounds of the electronic world; and instead of having a pesky DM to detail things and make rulings they have a lovely, mute CPU as their arbiter.

I acknowledge that there is no definitively right style of playing D&D, but I can't imagine a less interesting game to be involved in as a player where the DM just sits there and asks "So what do you do now?" all the time. My best and most memorable D&D experiences of the last 20 years have been with imaginative, descriptive DMs detailing their world, the adventure, and playing my character's involvement in it all.

A DM can tell a story, an interractive story, without strongarming or railroading the players, and to me that is the essence of enjoyable gaming.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> A DM can tell a story, an interractive story, without strongarming or railroading the players, and to me that is the essence of enjoyable gaming.




Heck, a DM can tell an enjoyable story *while* strongarming or railroading the players, if that's the way his or her players like playing the game. I've known many a player that, when faced with a choice, freeze. Remove their choices (except what to do in battle) and they have a ball.

I tend to be a bit more in the middle as a player - I like having a couple of choices, but I prefer not to have to find my own hooks for adventure... the DM better provide those.

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> 3.X might offer a wonderful ruleset, but there is absolutely no reason to trash previous editions on this basis.



Quoted for extreme truth!   


> I would go so far as to say that the variable priest was one of the best things in 2e, and that only the addition of prestige classes prevented dropping it from being a major gaffe in 3e.



Indeed - speciality priests are one of the things I miss most from 2E. Except for domain choice, Clerics are back to being "cookie cutter" models of each other (barring PrCs, of course)...


----------



## Ourph

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Hmm, this seems to be a growing sentiment from what I read. Seems like many players today find a DM to be a "neccessary evil" rather than the guy they all thank for creating a richly detailed and consistent setting for them to adventure in. Any DM who enjoys storytelling nowadays seems to be accused of "railroading".




Being a worldbuilder (i.e. - creating a richly detailed and consistent setting) is different than being a storyteller (i.e. - devising stories and ushering the players through one pre-prepared scene after another until the conclusion is reached).  Events and ongoing stories are obviously part of any detailed setting but there's a line between an ongoing story that's happening to NPCs that the PCs can interact with and an ongoing story that's happening to the PCs based on the DM's pre-written script.

I actually don't think there's a significant disagreement between what you are describing and what P&P and Ghul are naming as their preferred gaming style.  Perhaps there is simply a misunderstanding here about the way people are using the word "storyteller".


----------



## ghul

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Hmm, this seems to be a growing sentiment from what I read. Seems like many players today find a DM to be a "neccessary evil" rather than the guy they all thank for creating a richly detailed and consistent setting for them to adventure in. Any DM who enjoys storytelling nowadays seems to be accused of "railroading".
> 
> I honestly believe it's more of that "video game" mentaility creeping in. Some people now are used to generating a character, then running around within the bounds of the electronic world; and instead of having a pesky DM to detail things and make rulings they have a lovely, mute CPU as their arbiter.
> 
> I acknowledge that there is no definitively right style of playing D&D, but I can't imagine a less interesting game to be involved in as a player where the DM just sits there and asks "So what do you do now?" all the time. My best and most memorable D&D experiences of the last 20 years have been with imaginative, descriptive DMs detailing their world, the adventure, and playing my character's involvement in it all.
> 
> A DM can tell a story, an interractive story, without strongarming or railroading the players, and to me that is the essence of enjoyable gaming.





You misunderstand me, Thur.  In fact, I agree with most everything you say.  A rich setting is quite integral to the D&D experience, and I have in my experience of 25 years DMing employed both commercial settings, homebrew, and amalgamations thereof.  What I do not prefer is to DM as a "storyteller" -- and maybe this is just a matter of semantics creeping in, but as see it, a storytelling DM has a preconceived notions as to how the campaign, and in microcosm, how the adventures will pan out. This, IMO, results in powerless player characters who have a right to change the world. 

This video game mentallity you cite also bothers me, and if a DM-less 4e is the future of the game we all obviously love (why else are we here?), then I must say it is a misnomer of it is called Dungeons & Dragons. Hope I've made myself clearer.

Happy gaming,
-Ghul


----------



## Crothian

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I don't think he's saying that any DM who ever checks with a player for clarification is a bad DM, but rather a DM who constantly misunderstands basic rules and needs to check with players on every minute detail...





Right!!  Like having someone need to come along and explain it better then I can would make me a bad poster


----------



## Lanefan

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Why?
> 
> _You_ might treat D&D as an exercise in amateur theatrics or round-robin storytelling, but _I_ don't have to.



You're storytelling when you describe the room the party just entered.  The players are storytelling when they go to the King to claim their reward for defeating the Gnoll threat on the eastern border.  Granted, some people get a bit more flowery and theatrical with their story elements, but when you beat it all down the game is in essence a collaborative story.  I fail to see a problem...

Lanefan


----------



## Thurbane

Ourph said:
			
		

> Perhaps there is simply a misunderstanding here about the way people are using the word "storyteller".



Quite possibly.

But my comments weren't directed solely at him - this really is a growing sentiment I see in various places. IMHO, and I could be way off the mark, the player/DM dynamic is turning more from everyone being there to have some fun, to more adversarial and everyone wanting to hold each other "accountable".


----------



## Thurbane

ghul said:
			
		

> You misunderstand me, Thur.  In fact, I agree with most everything you say.  A rich setting is quite integral to the D&D experience, and I have in my experience of 25 years DMing employed both commercial settings, homebrew, and amalgamations thereof.  What I do not prefer is to DM as a "storyteller" -- and maybe this is just a matter of semantics creeping in, but as see it, a storytelling DM has a preconceived notions as to how the campaign, and in microcosm, how the adventures will pan out. This, IMO, results in powerless player characters who have a right to change the world.
> 
> This video game mentallity you cite also bothers me, and if a DM-less 4e is the future of the game we all obviously love (why else are we here?), then I must say it is a misnomer of it is called Dungeons & Dragons. Hope I've made myself clearer.
> 
> Happy gaming,
> -Ghul



Ah, I see, sorry for the misunderstanding then.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Quite possibly.
> 
> But my comments weren't directed solely at him - this really is a growing sentiment I see in various places. IMHO, and I could be way off the mark, the player/DM dynamic is turning more from everyone being there to have some fun, to more adversarial and everyone wanting to hold each other "accountable".




I think you're way off the mark.

Certainly this behaviour is more apparent due to the greater convention play of D&D (see Living Greyhawk and related) and the rise of the internet, but I don't think it is anything new. _Knights of the Dinner Table_ existed long before 3e, and it's very much the DM vs Players style of game.

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> I think you're way off the mark.
> 
> Certainly this behaviour is more apparent due to the greater convention play of D&D (see Living Greyhawk and related) and the rise of the internet, but I don't think it is anything new. _Knights of the Dinner Table_ existed long before 3e, and it's very much the DM vs Players style of game.
> 
> Cheers!



Oh, for sure, adversarial groups have existed as long as D&D has, but I still feel that this style of play has become more prevalent in recent times, especially among newer players. People keep saying that 3.X gives more power back to the players and discourages heavy handed DMing by making the rules more accessable to all involved, and I agree that, to an extent, this is a good thing.

When carried far and beyond a reasonable level, though, this becomes a bit of a "trust no one/question everything" mentality, on both sides - which is NOT a good thing, IMHO. 3.X also seems to put a lot more emphasis on RAW, and again, this is not a bad thing in and of itself, until someone at the table wants to use RAW to disrupt the flow of a game or try to score an advantage over everyone else by virtue of greater RAW knowledge.


----------



## Ourph

Thurbane said:
			
		

> the player/DM dynamic is turning more from everyone being there to have some fun, to more adversarial and everyone wanting to hold each other "accountable".




Probably way OT but I think this has little to do with the rules and a lot to do with people in general becoming more adversarial and less respectful of each other.  The guys I learned to play D&D with in the early 80's were all born pre-1970 and grew up with MUCH different values and attitudes in their homes than the kids I'm teaching to play today.  I understand completely the "all for one and one for all" attitude you're talking about, but in larger culture (as well as gamer culture) it seems to have been replaced to a large extent by "me first", which can't help but lead to the kind of adversarial relationships you're talking about.

Anyway, /off-topic rant.


----------



## Thurbane

Ourph said:
			
		

> Probably way OT but I think this has little to do with the rules and a lot to do with people in general becoming more adversarial and less respectful of each other.  The guys I learned to play D&D with in the early 80's were all born pre-1970 and grew up with MUCH different values and attitudes in their homes than the kids I'm teaching to play today.  I understand completely the "all for one and one for all" attitude you're talking about, but in larger culture (as well as gamer culture) it seems to have been replaced to a large extent by "me first", which can't help but lead to the kind of adversarial relationships you're talking about.
> 
> Anyway, /off-topic rant.



That's also a very good point.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Oh, for sure, adversarial groups have existed as long as D&D has, but I still feel that this style of play has become more prevalent in recent times, especially among newer players.




I think it's often a trait of newer players, regardless of era.



> 3.X also seems to put a lot more emphasis on RAW, and again, this is not a bad thing in and of itself, until someone at the table wants to use RAW to disrupt the flow of a game or try to score an advantage over everyone else by virtue of greater RAW knowledge.




Indeed. Brian from KoDT comes to mind as the archetypal rules-lawyer... oh, wait - wasn't Gary inveighing against that type in the 1E DMG? 

The era of 3e has seen the heaviest discussion of the game online, thus skewing our perceptions of the matter. I do agree that 3e lends itself more to rules discussion than 1e, thanks to the options available for it; but I daresay similar scenes were enacted in 1e days with optional material from Dragon magazine - Len Lakofka comes to mind as one of the early "complexifiers" of D&D - and certainly in 2e the rules debates were legion. Much more after Player's Option, as well!

Cheers!


----------



## Raven Crowking

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I acknowledge that there is no definitively right style of playing D&D, but I can't imagine a less interesting game to be involved in as a player where the DM just sits there and asks "So what do you do now?" all the time. My best and most memorable D&D experiences of the last 20 years have been with imaginative, descriptive DMs detailing their world, the adventure, and playing my character's involvement in it all.





Now, see, I would say that I am one of those DMs who lay the table and let the players choose what to do.  OTOH, I set a lot of hooks.  And many of those hooks are NPCs doing what they choose to do.

Example:  Orcs attack woodsmen and farmers around Long Archer.  The Baron of Long Archer therefore sets a bounty on orc ears.  The orcs are being goaded by a group of undead "druids" who call themselves the Bonewardens (which is actually the name of another religious sect).  The Bonewardens have fallen under the thrall of a demon who long ago tricked them into believing that undeath would minimize the impact of humans on nature.

Nothing forced the PCs to seek out the Bonewardens....but they did when a treant named Longfall the Windsinger advised them to do so.  Had they not, the orc raids would become more severe over time, until they or someone else decided to do something about it.

It is not that I do not present "stories"; it is simply that I provide a lot of potential stories, and that the background stories are largely about NPCs until the PCs become involved.  There are a few exceptions.  In one ruin, a ghost was the lover of a character's grandmother in life.  Other storylines revolve around PC backgrounds supplied by the players.  Does Locke want to know who he really is?  Does Nift want to avenge his parents?

The important thing, IMHO, is that the world moves with the PCs or without them, that PC backgrounds are given significance (if the player in question supplied enough to work with), and that the PCs get to choose how they deal with ongoing events.

If this is the least interesting type of game you can imagine, our styles are very different indeed!    


RC


----------



## Thurbane

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> If this is the least interesting type of game you can imagine, our styles are very different indeed!



I guess I would say I'm "middle of the road" between your style, and the "railroading style". I will certainly give players a nudge in the direction of the adventure that I have in mind for them (in terms of hints, clues and info), but if they choose to go in a totally different direction, I won't punish them for it. Same when I am a player - while I like to have a certain amount of freedom to explore anywhere I like, I don't mind if the DM drops some hints (even unsubtle ones) about where there might be some suitable adventure opportunities.   

The main point I was trying to get accross is that DM theatrics and/or storytelling, and player choice don't need to be mutually exclusive.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Thurbane said:
			
		

> The main point I was trying to get accross is that DM theatrics and/or storytelling, and player choice don't need to be mutually exclusive.





Well, I agree with that!


RC


----------



## Hussar

> Oh, for sure, adversarial groups have existed as long as D&D has, but I still feel that this style of play has become more prevalent in recent times, especially among newer players. People keep saying that 3.X gives more power back to the players and discourages heavy handed DMing by making the rules more accessable to all involved, and I agree that, to an extent, this is a good thing.




See, that's the mistake right there.  3.x did not give the power to the players.  It took the power from the DM's and kept it wrapped up in the rules.  Take the example of jump that I gave earlier.  A 10 foot jump (barring any strange circumstances) is a set DC.  In 1e, there was no set rules for making that jump, so, any answer the DM came up with was right.  It was right because the game also stated that the DM is always right.  So, if the DM decided that you cannot jump in plate mail, you can't.  

The power lies entirely in the hands of the DM.  In 3e, the power lies in the rules.



			
				RC said:
			
		

> And this is, exactly, the attitude that causes all of those "My DM said X, is he right?" threads that spring up on EN World (and that you, apparently, deny the existance of when Thurbane brought them up).




Pardon?  I never denied any such thing.  

However, the point of those thread, by and large, is a to clarify the rules.  Not to judge the rules making ability of the DM.  If the DM decided that the DC for a 10 foot jump was 35 and had no reason for it, then I can say that that was a bad DM call.  It was a complete misreading of the Jump skill.

Now, if there were additional factors which changed the DC, then fine.  But, again, that's the point of discussing the rules - to determine if those factors merited such a huge bump in the DC.  Maybe there was an earthquake at the time.  Or some sort of magic involved.  Fine.  No problems.  But, if the DM is simply pulling the number out of the air, then the players have every right to question it when rulings actually exist in the RAW.



			
				RC said:
			
		

> (1) One of the really great things about 3.x is that the players can know the rules as well as the DM, and the DMG is not off-limits to the players.
> 
> (2) Optional prestige classes cannot cause the problems that optional priest classes can cause, because one appears in the DMG and the other appears in the PHB.
> 
> See, I still have a hard time with both (1) and (2) being true. Of course, (2) is only even remotely true if you consider the Core Rules only. Prestige classes and alternate classes appear hither and yon in all sorts of splatbooks.




You misunderstand.  PrC's are entirely the responsibility of the DM.  It specifically says so in the DMG.  If the DM doesn't want to allow a PrC in the game, he doesn't have to.  However, specialty priests are called out in the 2e PHB, with almost no guidance on how to create them.  It does say that you have to work with the DM to create one, but, it doesn't say that that DM should nix ideas if he doesn't like them.

As was mentioned, I could think that a Vic 20 was a great computer, but that doesn't make it so now.  Does that mean that I cannot criticize older systems for not doing what they should have?


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> See, that's the mistake right there.  3.x did not give the power to the players.  It took the power from the DM's and kept it wrapped up in the rules.  Take the example of jump that I gave earlier.  A 10 foot jump (barring any strange circumstances) is a set DC.  In 1e, there was no set rules for making that jump, so, any answer the DM came up with was right.  It was right because the game also stated that the DM is always right.  So, if the DM decided that you cannot jump in plate mail, you can't.
> 
> The power lies entirely in the hands of the DM.  In 3e, the power lies in the rules.



Yes, it was so horrible back in those dark ages when the DM had to be called to make a ruling due to the fact the rulebooks weren't a cross between Encyclopedia Brittanica and Advanced Copyright Law For Beginners. He would always use the chance to wring his hands, cackle in glee, and screw the players over, rather than to make a fair ruling. And the players all had to sit silently in their iron shackles, quivering in fear lest the Evil One might smite them down with a houserule if they dared to speak out.

Oh, troubling times, indeed they were...  

Just one question - can you point me to the 3.X rules on the effects of lack of sleep? Surely such a majestic system has detailed rules on something so trivial, that is likely to crop in the daily life of an adventurer on the road...

OK, I was being a total jackass with those comments, but was trying to illustrate a point. A point someone else made so elquently earlier:


			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> 3.X might offer a wonderful ruleset, but there is absolutely no reason to trash previous editions on this basis.



My mind boggles that there are people out there who actually played 1E and 2E and apparently found them such cumbersome, unfair and unplayable systems, seriously...in 15 years, we never had a fraction of the problems some people here seemed to.  :\


----------



## Hussar

It might help a bit to back up a second and rephrase my point.  

I wasn't intending on bashing earlier editions.  I can see how it could be taken that way, but it wasn't my intention.

The point was raised that because 3e has a fairly comprehensive ruleset with a high degree of functionality, it is easier for poor and average DM's to run a decent game.  It might not be a great game, but, at least playable.  I was then told that rules make no difference whatsoever in the quality of the game, only the DM's abilities do.

I disagree with this and gave the examples of the specialty priest and jumping to illustrate how having codified rules makes it easier to run a game.  How having solid rules means that the DM's particular abilities don't have to directly impact the quality of the game.

This doesn't make earlier editions bad.  It makes them more DM dependent.

Now, whether you think DM dependency is a good thing or not is up for grabs.  Personally, I would rather focus on the fun stuff of DMing - runnign monsters, designing adventures and whatnot - and not bother rewriting rules.  Some people enjoy rewriting the rules.  More power to them.  It still doesn't actualy affect my base point which is that removing some DM authority and vesting into the rules means that the DM's abilities become somewhat less important to the quality of the game being run.


----------



## Numion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Just one question - can you point me to the 3.X rules on the effects of lack of sleep? Surely such a majestic system has detailed rules on something so trivial, that is likely to crop in the daily life of an adventurer on the road...




It don't have rules for taking a dump, either. We had to stop our last session dead on its tracks and _make up some rules on the fly_, in the best tradition of 1E DMs. I'm telling ya, it's the mark of a great DM when you can make rules for that on the fly. I'm glad that the power of dump is still firmly in hands of the DM. 

I can screw over my players with that one for years to come   



> My mind boggles that there are people out there who actually played 1E and 2E and apparently found them such cumbersome, unfair and unplayable systems, seriously...in 15 years, we never had a fraction of the problems some people here seemed to.  :\




I just stopped playing 2E instead of having the problems.


----------



## Maggan

Lanefan said:
			
		

> You're storytelling when you describe the room the party just entered.  The players are storytelling when they go to the King to claim their reward for defeating the Gnoll threat on the eastern border.  Granted, some people get a bit more flowery and theatrical with their story elements, but when you beat it all down the game is in essence a collaborative story.  I fail to see a problem...
> 
> Lanefan




QFT. Being a good story teller when playing rpgs is not equal to using theatrics or railroading, or forcing the story down your players throats, or railroading.

Those are elements any story teller can chose to use, together with e.g. the use of NPCs and NPC motivations, locations, hooks and pushes, consequences from PC actions and much more. Including knowledge of the rules, if the DM has such knowledge. 

And input from the players, of course.

Painting storytelling as only theatrics and railroading is simply wrong.




			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> It is not that I do not present "stories"; it is simply that I provide a lot of potential stories, and that the background stories are largely about NPCs until the PCs become involved. There are a few exceptions. In one ruin, a ghost was the lover of a character's grandmother in life. Other storylines revolve around PC backgrounds supplied by the players. Does Locke want to know who he really is? Does Nift want to avenge his parents?
> 
> The important thing, IMHO, is that the world moves with the PCs or without them, that PC backgrounds are given significance (if the player in question supplied enough to work with), and that the PCs get to choose how they deal with ongoing events.




Good example of how I view good storytelling in RPGs.

/M


----------



## Thurbane

Numion said:
			
		

> It don't have rules for taking a dump, either. We had to stop our last session dead on its tracks and _make up some rules on the fly_, in the best tradition of 1E DMs. I'm telling ya, it's the mark of a great DM when you can make rules for that on the fly. I'm glad that the power of dump is still firmly in hands of the DM.



 

Respect my authoritah! Regdar, give me a ranged touch attack and a reflex save!


----------



## BroccoliRage

I can't, Mialee! I just used Uber Munchkin Great Cleave, and I'm shooting for my Epic Perv prestige class! Ohhh, look out! An abyssal/fiendish/dragonwrought/aberrant/half kobold/half dragon/half vampire/bad anime adaptation/Dire Koala! Assist, Lidda! 

And it's accompanied by a Gelatinous Cube Monk, a joke from WOTC that's official and totally a joke, but not really!

XD

While it's not a system complaint, I do find the style of writing in the newer books a tad ridiculous. Seriously, did some chick at WOTC get upset at the lack of enlightenment in gaming books read by nerds? "She" in place of "he" in the generic. Christ. That's not liberation, it's improper use of English. And the standardized group is a bit gay, as well. Not to mention that I had a fighter named Ragdar that I can't even use with my current group. (My current group is kids raised on 3e who keep coming to my games and think they are somehow going to get me to update).

Does the standardized group of Jozan, Regdar, Mialee, Lidda, Tordek, Krusk and Co. actually contribute anything to the game? Is there a purpose to them that I missed when I read those rulebooks?

Like I said, these aren't system complaints, just complaints on WOTC's treatment of their product. 

That being said, I do like alot of WOTC's newer artwork, at least that which isn't anime in flavor. (I hate anime, the characters all have the same face with different hair, the dialogue is lame, Inuyasha is a retarded show. So is Dragon Ball Z. Full Metal Alchemist is tolerable, and Ghost in The Shell, every series, is the only total exception.)

I don't play AD&D for nostalgia's sake. I play AD&D because it's a perfectly fine system and has served me well for years.


----------



## DestroyYouAlot

Numion said:
			
		

> It don't have rules for taking a dump, either. We had to stop our last session dead on its tracks and _make up some rules on the fly_, in the best tradition of 1E DMs. I'm telling ya, it's the mark of a great DM when you can make rules for that on the fly. I'm glad that the power of dump is still firmly in hands of the DM.
> 
> I can screw over my players with that one for years to come




Dumps fall, everyone dies!



			
				BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> I can't, Mialee! I just used Uber Munchkin Great Cleave (el clippo)



Not for nothing, but I was using "cleave" (or a rule that would pass on a quick glance) since about 1992.  


> Does the standardized group of Jozan, Regdar, Mialee, Lidda, Tordek, Krusk and Co. actually contribute anything to the game? Is there a purpose to them that I missed when I read those rulebooks?



It always struck me as a relatively intuitive way of illustrating how to make a character with the new rules.  One of the best aids to a DM making the switch from 2e to 3e, IMHO, was the "iconic characters at X level" write-ups in the "Enemies and Allies" book.  Or, you can just look at them as a way of describing in-game scenarios in the course of explaining the rules.  Of course, you may remember Delsenora, Rath, Ragnar, Cwell the Fine, and friends, the "iconic characters" from the 2e PHB.  (Or you may not, depending on how many levels in the Grognard prc you have.    )


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> Pardon?  I never denied any such thing.




My apologies.  It certainly seemed to me like you did when Thurbane brought it up earlier.  It also seems to me that you are doing the same when you say "However, the point of those thread, by and large, is a to clarify the rules."  IMHO, there are a great many threads that do exist to judge whether or not the DM is applying the rules correctly, regardless of what the rule or application is.  I have participated in many myself.

You say:  "If the DM decided that the DC for a 10 foot jump was 35 and had no reason for it, then I can say that that was a bad DM call.  It was a complete misreading of the Jump skill."

I say:  If the example is not so extreme, how do you know if there was no reason for it?  How do you know that "the DM is simply pulling the number out of the air"?



> You misunderstand.  PrC's are entirely the responsibility of the DM.  It specifically says so in the DMG.  If the DM doesn't want to allow a PrC in the game, he doesn't have to.  However, specialty priests are called out in the 2e PHB, with almost no guidance on how to create them.  It does say that you have to work with the DM to create one, but, it doesn't say that that DM should nix ideas if he doesn't like them.




Did I misunderstand that?

Specialty priests weren't specifically optional?  The DMG didn't contain a section on creating balanced classes?  The 2e rules were vague on the idea that the DM could (and should) nix ideas he didn't like?  


EDIT:  If you claim that prestige classes are entirely in the provence of the DM, but that specialty priests are not, how does that make 3.X less DM-dependent, anyway?  Not that I accept the initial premise, but I have a hard time seeing where that premise leads to the conclusion you are proposing.

"Less DM dependent" is an illusion, IMHO & IME.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Also, just for the record, what is said in the 2e PHB is:


In the simplest version of the AD&D game, clerics serve religions that can be generally described as "good" or "evil".  Nothing more needs to be said about it; the game will play perfectly well at this level.  However, a DM who has taken the time to create a detailed campaign world has often spent some of that time devising elaborate pantheons; either unique creations or adaptations from history or literature.  If this option is open (and only your DM can decide), you may want your character to adhere to a particular mythos, taking advantage of the detail and color your DM has provided.  If your character follows a particular mythos, expect him to have abilities, spells, and restrictions different from the generic cleric.​

It then goes on to describe what priests might be like.  Oddly enough, nowhere in this section does it say anything about players making any choices as to what these abilities, spells, powers, and restrictions are.  What it does say are things like "The DM has final choice in all situations."  Perhaps we are reading a different book.

Interestingly enough, I just re-read the Jumping NWP on p. 61, and I find that to be quite clear as well.  In fact, you just determine how far you can jump, and you can make the check without any DM input....until it comes time to find out what the actual outcome is.  Same as 3.X.

The biggest difference is that the proficiency is required to make "extraordinary" jumps, and the term is not defined.  However, in 3.X there are jumps that require no checks, and it seems likely (and was certainly how we played it) that the NWP is required for any jump that requires a check.  

OTOH, 2nd Ed jumping doesn't take into account circumstance penalties or bonuses.  You just roll dice and add your level, to you maximum jumping distance.  In 3.X, the DM is required to set (or not set) these modifiers.  So, overall, these examples require the exact same level of DM adjudication.


RC


----------



## WizarDru

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Let me see if I understand where you are coming from.
> 
> (1)  One of the really great things about 3.x is that the players can know the rules as well as the DM, and the DMG is not off-limits to the players.




Side note: this highlights a concept some held that I always thought was somewhat ridiculous; namely the idea that the DMG and MM were sacrosanct and untouchable by players in any and all circumstances and that any player who had knowledge of them was, in whole or part, effectively cheating to some degree.

I realized this the first time I chose to be a player, rather than a DM.  In hindsight, the very idea seemed odd, when you consider that EGG's co-DMs were his players and vice-versa from day one.  This isn't to say that I allowed free access to those books during my games...but at the same time, the DMG wasn't some book of arcane lore to be hoarded.  My general rule always was that players merely couldn't consult those books during the game, not that they couldn't own or look at them, otherwise.


----------



## DestroyYouAlot

Crothian said:
			
		

> I see it as allowing for players that think they know the rules and feel like they can correct the DM when he gets it wrong.  That kind of pressure and experience can really make DMing 3ed harder.  Now, you don't only need to know all the rules you have to put up with players that think they do as well.  Players knowing the rules does not replace the responsibility of the DMing knowing the rules.




I'll tell ya one thing, though - some of my players get to play (whether as DMs or players) a _lot_ more than I do.  If I'm a little fuzzy on the grapple rules, or how many rounds _sleep_ lasts, I call down the table for an assist.  Which disrupts the flow of the game 0.00000004 times as much as having everyone stare at me for five minutes (or less, I engage in hyperbole) flipping through the rulebook that only I'm allowed to crack.  I _like_ having my players know the rules, sometimes better than I do - it lets me worry more about what the evil cult is planning, or where the bugbear is setting an ambush, or which chest has gold and which has neatly-packaged flasks of green slime.    Which, in effect, amounts to me having to be less of an "interface between the players and the rulebook," and more of a "evil overgod of plot devices and pit traps," which is (apparently) what some people who are knocking 3e want out of the game.

Edit:  What's not a given, however, but does apply to my group, is that I have _awesome_ players, all of whom predate 3e by more than a few years.  None of them are going to ruin their own enjoyment by cheating, none of them have ever questioned my authority as a DM (and this extends to my on-the-spot rulings and changes to the RAW), and I place _at least_ as much control (and therefore responsibility) over where our (_our_) game goes in their hands as I hold in mine.


----------



## Henry

WizarDru said:
			
		

> My general rule always was that players merely couldn't consult those books during the game, not that they couldn't own or look at them, otherwise.




And this was my rule, and the rule of the group I joined later in the 1980's, before I had ever joined them. I don't ever recall having met anyone who listened to the "the DMG/MM is untouchable by players" line and took it that literally, even with it being in the DMG itself. Having come from groups where every player had tried his hand at DM'ing at least once, it really didn't make sense to interpret it that way.


----------



## Raven Crowking

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Side note: this highlights a concept some held that I always thought was somewhat ridiculous; namely the idea that the DMG and MM were sacrosanct and untouchable by players in any and all circumstances and that any player who had knowledge of them was, in whole or part, effectively cheating to some degree.
> 
> I realized this the first time I chose to be a player, rather than a DM.  In hindsight, the very idea seemed odd, when you consider that EGG's co-DMs were his players and vice-versa from day one.  This isn't to say that I allowed free access to those books during my games...but at the same time, the DMG wasn't some book of arcane lore to be hoarded.  My general rule always was that players merely couldn't consult those books during the game, not that they couldn't own or look at them, otherwise.





Heck, I started gaming when I gave the Blue Box to my brother.  In order to DM, I had to borrow the book from him.  When I started with AD&D 1e, I didn't own a DMG, so I had to borrow it overnight from one of my players to set up the game!    

(Mind you, I was awfully glad when I bought my own books!)    

RC


----------



## WizarDru

Henry said:
			
		

> And this was my rule, and the rule of the group I joined later in the 1980's, before I had ever joined them. I don't ever recall having met anyone who listened to the "the DMG/MM is untouchable by players" line and took it that literally, even with it being in the DMG itself. Having come from groups where every player had tried his hand at DM'ing at least once, it really didn't make sense to interpret it that way.




Truthfully, I never knew anyone who did, either.  I think this may highlight the difference that the Internet has made.  In 1982, I could write a letter to Dragon magazine, and maybe, MAYBE four months later I MIGHT see a reply to such a question in the reader mail or a continued discussion in the Forum section.

Now I can just pop over the the Colonel Playdoh thread and ask the designer himself (or ask any number of creators directly, such as Rich Baker, Chris Pramas, Monte Cook, Ben Durbin, Steve Kenson and more).  Not to mention I can directly interact and ask players and DMs from across the WORLD for their experiences.  Hell, I remember when White Dwarf was a big deal, as it was the SECOND magazine in the world that dealt with stuff like D&D that I knew of at the time (I mean, the General didn't count).


----------



## Thurbane

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> I can't, Mialee! I just used Uber Munchkin Great Cleave, and I'm shooting for my Epic Perv prestige class! Ohhh, look out! An abyssal/fiendish/dragonwrought/aberrant/half kobold/half dragon/half vampire/bad anime adaptation/Dire Koala! Assist, Lidda!
> 
> And it's accompanied by a Gelatinous Cube Monk, a joke from WOTC that's official and totally a joke, but not really!



   


> I don't play AD&D for nostalgia's sake. I play AD&D because it's a perfectly fine system and has served me well for years.



Another one to add to my QFT stockpile...


----------



## Thurbane

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Side note: this highlights a concept some held that I always thought was somewhat ridiculous; namely the idea that the DMG and MM were sacrosanct and untouchable by players in any and all circumstances and that any player who had knowledge of them was, in whole or part, effectively cheating to some degree.
> 
> I realized this the first time I chose to be a player, rather than a DM.  In hindsight, the very idea seemed odd, when you consider that EGG's co-DMs were his players and vice-versa from day one.  This isn't to say that I allowed free access to those books during my games...but at the same time, the DMG wasn't some book of arcane lore to be hoarded.  My general rule always was that players merely couldn't consult those books during the game, not that they couldn't own or look at them, otherwise.



I thought I had already debunked this myth of players hands being slapped away from MM & DMG back in the "bad old days"...

Still, even in the hallowed halls of 3.X, I still don't let the players pick up a MM during an encounter just to "brush up" on the stats of an opponent. Unless the character has an encyclopedic knowledge of the creature in question, it completely ruins the suspension of disbelief. I like to play D&D as an RPG rather than a tactical simulator - but if another group does allow perusal of materials during a battle, I have no particular problem with it.


----------



## Lanefan

> I thought I had already debunked this myth of players hands being slapped away from MM & DMG back in the "bad old days"...
> 
> Still, even in the hallowed halls of 3.X, I still don't let the players pick up a MM during an encounter just to "brush up" on the stats of an opponent. Unless the character has an encyclopedic knowledge of the creature in question, it completely ruins the suspension of disbelief. I like to play D&D as an RPG rather than a tactical simulator - but if another group does allow perusal of materials during a battle, I have no particular problem with it.



And if the DM is using non-standard stats for the monsters, looking at the book matters even less. 

Though perusing the DMG to find out what your new magic item might do is strictly verboten.

Lanefan


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I thought I had already debunked this myth of players hands being slapped away from MM & DMG back in the "bad old days"...




Slapping hands? We had summary executions! 

I was rereading that section of the DMG the other day, and it seems fairly clear that it mostly applies to _new_ players; by looking in the MM and DMG, they're spoiling the fun of discovering the game through play.



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Interestingly enough, I just re-read the Jumping NWP on p. 61, and I find that to be quite clear as well. In fact, you just determine how far you can jump, and you can make the check without any DM input....until it comes time to find out what the actual outcome is. Same as 3.X.




My ongoing problem with 2e NWPs comes from the fact that they're On/Off for the most part. Improving them, though possible within the rules, was really not worth it. Player's Option made everything a lot better, though I prefer the 3e system. (Opposed checks with skills were odd in 2e: the higher roll won, unless it failed).

Oh, and that most of them had no relevance to the play of the game.

Cheers!


----------



## Raven Crowking

MerricB said:
			
		

> My ongoing problem with 2e NWPs comes from the fact that they're On/Off for the most part. Improving them, though possible within the rules, was really not worth it. Player's Option made everything a lot better, though I prefer the 3e system. (Opposed checks with skills were odd in 2e: the higher roll won, unless it failed).





Sure.  I agree that the 3.X ruleset is very good, and the skills excel the old NWP system.  However, the old NWP system and the specialty priest are not evidence of the types of problems that Hussar claimed they are.


RC


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> I was rereading that section of the DMG the other day, and it seems fairly clear that it mostly applies to _new_ players; by looking in the MM and DMG, they're spoiling the fun of discovering the game through play.



Exactly. I tried to do the same thing when we first switched from 2E to 3.5E - when I was playing and before I had my first go at DMing under the new rules, I made a point of NOT reading the MM myself. I wanted to be surprised and challenged by mosters without having memorized every last little detail of their stats, as I had in 1E and 2E.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Now, whether you think DM dependency is a good thing or not is up for grabs. Personally, I would rather focus on the fun stuff of DMing - runnign monsters, designing adventures and whatnot - and not bother rewriting rules. Some people enjoy rewriting the rules. More power to them. It still doesn't actualy affect my base point which is that removing some DM authority and vesting into the rules means that the DM's abilities become somewhat less important to the quality of the game being run.




I'll agree with pretty much all of Hussar's post, saying that earlier editions were more DM dependant. I'll back this up further by saying that less DM dependance makes the game BETTER, by which I mean able to be enjoyed by a wider and more discerning (because it is wider) audience.

Now this gets a little rambly, but I haven't posted in a while, so please bear with me. 

RC made the point that the more successful game doesn't nessecarily indicate the best quality game. Quality, such as it is, is always a relative concept and cannot possibly be judged by some 100 different people to be the same thing. Which is why _consensus_ is key. The idea is that if 75 out of 100 people think X is better than Y, then, really, something about X must be more fundamentally enjoyable for more people than Y. The 25 other people are your basic statistic anomoly -- there are ALWAYS outcasts, counter-culturalists, and those who really can't make use of X, for instance. It's not that X is objectively better than Y (because that's impossible), it's that X is considered by the majority of people to be better than Y. And it's important, in my head, to find out why that could be. 

3e obviously fits this definition, where "Y" is "All earlier editions." 3e sells better than earlier editions, it supports a stronger market, and it appeals to a wider audience. 

If 2e and 1e and OD&D, et al were perfectly fine games that any competent person could have loads of fun with on a Sunday evening, *this would not have happened*. I'm not saying that the quality of the game (meaning, the quality one precieves in it) is the sole determining factor, but I believe it is one of the most important -- those 75 out of 100 people are motivated by many factors, but one that I have been hearing for six years of 3e has been "It has better rules."

Unless we are to assume that people are inherently dishonest or stupid (or at least that 75 out of every 100 people are thus), this should be taken at face value (and if you do assume that, I'd wonder if you agree with Democracy and Capitalism..or if you're just one of those 25 people). Most people think 3e has better rules, and therefore they buy more of 3e than they do of out-of-print OD&D (for instance). This means, in a very Darwinian sense, that it is a "more fit, more successful, better adapted" game than previous editions, at least at this point in time. 

People criticize 3e for a variety of invented and actual flaws, ranging from "videogame mentality" (inaccurate) to "over-codified rules" (accurate but relative), to "making players less subject to the DM" (inaccurate) to "not being D&D" (judging by this thread, inaccurate). 

If the ways 3e have "perverted the soul of D&D" have been to put some authority into the rulebooks, to grant an amazing level of customizability, and make the game (though better rules) easier to actually play, then I can't see the original soul of D&D being any more worthwhile today than the soul of the Dodo bird, because it does it's job to a higher quality than it has ever done it's job before.

And it's job has always been to sell itself to players -- to get as many people out of 100 playing that will play.

3e does what it sets out to do (sell D&D) better than any previous edition, and that is what makes me call it a *better game*. 

So I ask: What is there worth saving in the old editions? What experience can they provide that 3e cannot? What ancient wisdom has 3e discarded in it's hunger for money and high schoolers? 

I'm trying, as little as possible, to not get subject to individual preferences and get at the key of the real difference between the editions, and whether or not 3e actually *did* leave anything worthwhile behind before, worth going back, picking up, and reconsidering. 

We all know 3e has it's flaws, it can't appeal to everyone, it's not the second coming of Gygax. We know earlier editions had problems, too. Many of us are well aware of 3e's virtues. But what exclusive claim do other editions have on any virtues? Is there something 2e or 1e or OD&D or whatever does better than 3e, that 3e cannot also do?

....and this last part is important: *is it in the rules, or in your head?* Can you back it up with evidence from the books, or is it just a feeling, an inkling, a tendancy, an opinion? Is it something that would make more people play without loosing some people?

Because the point isn't to restrict D&D to some elite echelon of enlightenment and gamer nerdvana. The point *is* broad-based appeal, while still being D&D.


----------



## Thurbane

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> more discerning (because it is wider) audience.



Riiight, like how RnB fans are "more discerning" than classical music fans, just because there are more of them.   


> RC made the point that the more successful game doesn't nessecarily indicate the best quality game. Quality, such as it is, is always a relative concept and cannot possibly be judged by some 100 different people to be the same thing.



Which I agree with 138%


> Which is why _consensus_ is key. The idea is that if 75 out of 100 people think X is better than Y, then, really, something about X must be more fundamentally enjoyable for more people than Y. The 25 other people are your basic statistic anomoly -- there are ALWAYS outcasts, counter-culturalists, and those who really can't make use of X, for instance. It's not that X is objectively better than Y (because that's impossible), it's that X is considered by the majority of people to be better than Y. And it's important, in my head, to find out why that could be.



Agreed - more popular does not equate to better. It is scientifically provable that Beta video was technically a better format than VHS, but VHS won the marketing war, and therefore the popularity war. Some people say the same thing about Apples and IBMs.


> 3e obviously fits this definition, where "Y" is "All earlier editions." 3e sells better than earlier editions, it supports a stronger market, and it appeals to a wider audience.



Which is like saying that Hyundai Hatchbacks are better than Pontiac Trans-ams because more are sold today. You are comparing different eras.  


> If 2e and 1e and OD&D, et al were perfectly fine games that any competent person could have loads of fun with on a Sunday evening, *this would not have happened*.



Wrong, for the reasons I have already posted. Again I ask, did you ever actually play or DM under earlier editions, or are you going on hearsay? The 15 years of experience I and a good dozen or more people I have gamed with contradict your assumption.


> I'm not saying that the quality of the game (meaning, the quality one precieves in it) is the sole determining factor, but I believe it is one of the most important -- those 75 out of 100 people are motivated by many factors, but one that I have been hearing for six years of 3e has been "It has better rules."



Which is your prerogative, but it is still opinion, and not fact.


> Unless we are to assume that people are inherently dishonest or stupid (or at least that 75 out of every 100 people are thus), this should be taken at face value (and if you do assume that, I'd wonder if you agree with Democracy and Capitalism..or if you're just one of those 25 people). Most people think 3e has better rules, and therefore they buy more of 3e than they do of out-of-print OD&D (for instance). This means, in a very Darwinian sense, that it is a "more fit, more successful, better adapted" game than previous editions, at least at this point in time.



Yep, and Aqua's "Barbie Girl" is a better song than Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" because it sold more copies.   


> People criticize 3e for a variety of invented and actual flaws, ranging from "videogame mentality" (inaccurate)



How can an opinion be inaccurate? just curious...(and BTW, I still stand by the comment)


> to "over-codified rules" (accurate but relative),



Agree with you on this one.


> to "making players less subject to the DM" (inaccurate)



Your side of the debate really need to get your stories straight - half of you are pushing this bandwagon, and half are refuting it.


> to "not being D&D" (judging by this thread, inaccurate).



Again, nought but opinions, on both sides.


> If the ways 3e have "perverted the soul of D&D" have been to put some authority into the rulebooks, to grant an amazing level of customizability, and make the game (though better rules) easier to actually play, then I can't see the original soul of D&D being any more worthwhile today than the soul of the Dodo bird, because it does it's job to a higher quality than it has ever done it's job before.
> 
> And it's job has always been to sell itself to players -- to get as many people out of 100 playing that will play.



So easier and more played equals better. Therefore, checkers is a better game than chess. OooooK.   


> 3e does what it sets out to do (sell D&D) better than any previous edition, and that is what makes me call it a *better game*.



Once again, more copies sold does not equate to better, simply more popular.


> So I ask: What is there worth saving in the old editions? What experience can they provide that 3e cannot? What ancient wisdom has 3e discarded in it's hunger for money and high schoolers?



My point all along has not been that earlier editions are inherently better than 3.X, simply that it is inherently better either. As "better" is a totally subjective quality, you cannot prove or disprove this point any more than I can.


> I'm trying, as little as possible, to not get subject to individual preferences and get at the key of the real difference between the editions, and whether or not 3e actually *did* leave anything worthwhile behind before, worth going back, picking up, and reconsidering.



Well, if you are looking for a scientific formula that rates various aspects of the various systems, you aren't going to find it. Again, total subjectivity. Different aspects will work better or worse for groups and individuals, that simple. To categorically state that any edition was better than other at some particular point or mechanic again wanders into the realm of subjectivity.


> We all know 3e has it's flaws, it can't appeal to everyone, it's not the second coming of Gygax. We know earlier editions had problems, too. Many of us are well aware of 3e's virtues. But what exclusive claim do other editions have on any virtues? Is there something 2e or 1e or OD&D or whatever does better than 3e, that 3e cannot also do?



Nope. See above.


> ....and this last part is important: *is it in the rules, or in your head?* Can you back it up with evidence from the books, or is it just a feeling, an inkling, a tendancy, an opinion? Is it something that would make more people play without loosing some people?



Read back through this thread, many examples have been cited by both sides, Few have been agreed upon.


> Because the point isn't to restrict D&D to some elite echelon of enlightenment and gamer nerdvana. The point *is* broad-based appeal, while still being D&D.



Agreed. And my point, as always, has been that I don't hate 3.X, or think it's not D&D - it just has some aspects that I personally don't enjoy and think other editions did better. I'm not going to rehash these again, they are freely readable throughout this thread.

My main point, and point of some of the others on my side, has been that even if 3.X is a great system, it does not diminish earlier editions or made them any less fun or playable. In many ways, 3.X is a refinement of points that earlier editions arguably did not cover as well, but in many others it is a divergence from some key concepts that were ingrained in earlier eds. Whether this is good or bad is completely subjective - to argue otherwise is pointless.


----------



## MerricB

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> 3e obviously fits this definition, where "Y" is "All earlier editions." 3e sells better than earlier editions, it supports a stronger market, and it appeals to a wider audience.




Err - although I'm with you with "3e sells better than 2e", I'm not so sure about "3e sells better than 1e". Charles Ryan (how I miss him!) indicated that 3e was doing really, really well ("best ever"!), but we don't really have the figures to corroborate that.



> So I ask: What is there worth saving in the old editions? What experience can they provide that 3e cannot? What ancient wisdom has 3e discarded in it's hunger for money and high schoolers?




That's an excellent question. Though I'm tempted to say "Gygaxian prose", I can't really say that it universally improved the 1e rulebooks. It was great at giving the grand picture of the game, but when it came to explaining the actual rules, it could get pretty lousy. (See initiative).

When I look back to my early years in D&D, the rulebook that I really admired was the Moldvay Basic D&D book. It did everything a basic rulebook should do. It provided an excellent game. And, most importantly, the rules were clear. AD&D, in comparison, was pretty lousy. What AD&D had going for it over Basic D&D was _choices_. You could play gnomes! You could play illusionists! You could play elves that weren't fighter/magic-users!

Where AD&D really defined itself to me was in the _adventures_. They are spectacular. (There's a certain goofiness about Basic D&D adventures that doesn't really appeal).  

*Choices*, they are an essential part of D&D for me, to keep the game entertaining; the variety in approach and challenge. What 3e does better than previous editions is provide the base from which these options can be built without causing more and more rules conflicts. (See monk and surprise).

Cheers!


----------



## Hussar

> So easier and more played equals better. Therefore, checkers is a better game than chess. OooooK.




No, easier and more played equals more people playing and more appeal.  Choosing to remain with rules that appeal to smaller and smaller groups of people is the way to lose a business and get sold off to a small company that makes CCG's.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> 3e obviously fits this definition, where "Y" is "All earlier editions." 3e sells better than earlier editions, it supports a stronger market, and it appeals to a wider audience.




3.x has modules that sold 250,000 copies?  I strongly doubt it.  Who pays themselves six figure royalty cheques from 3.x?



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> If 2e and 1e and OD&D, et al were perfectly fine games that any competent person could have loads of fun with on a Sunday evening, *this would not have happened*.




Do you understand the history of D&D at all?  Sales figures peaked in 1980-82.

Zeb Cook wrote 2e because he thought it would improve the game.  The business heads behind 2e approved it because it meant they could stop paying royalties to Gary Gygax and line their own pockets.

They halved the D&D audience figures at a stroke when they released 2e, and sales plummetted steadily ever since.  There was admittedly a small upturn when 3.x came out but it was very small potatoes by comparison.


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> No, easier and more played equals more people playing and more appeal.  Choosing to remain with rules that appeal to smaller and smaller groups of people is the way to lose a business and get sold off to a small company that makes CCG's.



I wouldn't equate TSRs business woes to a fundmental fault with the ruleset of the day, but more to internal strife and extremely poor business management. 

Anyhow, that is entirely beside the point - simpler and more popular does not automatically equate to better, in D&D or in just about anything else, AFAIC. More people listen to Justin Timberlake and buy his albums than they do Henry Rollins, but I'll be in the cold, cold ground before you ever heard me say that Justin Timberlake is a BETTER artist than Hank.


----------



## MerricB

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> They halved the D&D audience figures at a stroke when they released 2e, and sales plummetted steadily ever since.  There was admittedly a small upturn when 3.x came out but it was very small potatoes by comparison.




Sales of the Player's Handbook were double what they were for the release of 2e... back to the levels of 1e.

Cheers!


----------



## BroccoliRage

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I wouldn't equate TSRs business woes to a fundmental fault with the ruleset of the day, but more to internal strife and extremely poor business management.
> 
> Anyhow, that is entirely beside the point - simpler and more popular does not automatically equate to better, in D&D or in just about anything else, AFAIC. More people listen to Justin Timberlake and buy his albums than they do Henry Rollins, but I'll be in the cold, cold ground before you ever heard me say that Justin Timberlake is a BETTER artist than Hank.





to further illustrate:

"TV PARTY TONIGHT! WE GOT NOTHIN' BETTER TO DO THAN WATCH TV AND HAVE A COUPLE OF BREWS!" -Black Flag

vs.

"Cry me a river. Oh. Cry me a river. Oh. Cry me a river. Oh." -Justin Timberlake

You be the judge.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

MerricB said:
			
		

> Sales of the Player's Handbook were double what they were for the release of 2e... back to the levels of 1e.




Which levels of 1e? 

Back to 1987 levels, perhaps.


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## Maggan

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Which levels of 1e?
> 
> Back to 1987 levels, perhaps.




And to complete my picture of the levels ... what were the levels of sales for AD&D 1st?

What did the rules sell?

What did a module sell?

/M


----------



## Raven Crowking

And, finally, KM, while you seemed to understand the point that marketing forces and sales do not offer a fair indication of the relative value of a product, you ignored the other half of the equation:  Market forces tend to pull toward the lowest common denominator.  There is a reason why romance novels sell, why studios tend to produce more "safe" movies than great movies, etc., etc., etc.

Because a thing sells well does not mean that it is inherently bad.  However, sales alone should never be taken as a fair indication of relative value.

(Unless, of course, our only concern is market shares.)


RC


EDIT:  I guess I just expect more from a game than a sales pitch that appeals to X number of players.  Frankly, I couldn't care less about the commercials or sales figures when I'm sitting down to play.


----------



## Kormydigar

Hussar said:
			
		

> Yes, a DM needs to do a lot more than deal with the rules.  But, if the rules are an issue, then the DM needs to deal with them.  Thus the DM's abilities become more important.  When the rules are less of an issue, then the DM doesn't need to deal with them and his abilities become less important.




Thats the basic problem with the 3.X rules. As soon as the DM does anything outside the programmer's parameters the players cry foul and want to reboot him or move to another server. If DM skill or lack of it is the driving force behind a heavy handed rule set then perhaps players and DM's should communicate more meaningfully outside of game time to resolve issues. What has happened to good old fashioned face to face communication?


----------



## WayneLigon

Kormydigar said:
			
		

> Thats the basic problem with the 3.X rules. As soon as the DM does anything outside the programmer's parameters the players cry foul and want to reboot him or move to another server.




I have yet to see a '3e = videogamy' thread or post that makes any sense at all. You're obviously using English, since I can understand the glyphs in the order you've placed them, but that's about all the sense it makes.


----------



## Kormydigar

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> I have yet to see a '3e = videogamy' thread or post that makes any sense at all. You're obviously using English, since I can understand the glyphs in the order you've placed them, but that's about all the sense it makes.




3.X games don't HAVE to be like that. I run a 3.5 campaign and it is going fine. It is the way the rules are presented and interpreted by some newer players. Most of my players have been gaming since the late 70's- early 80's though. I think that makes a huge difference in attitude and how the game is approached.


----------



## dcas

Maggan said:
			
		

> What did a module sell?




The top module sellers for 1e were T1 - The Village of Hommlet, S1 - Tomb of Horrors, and I6 - Ravenloft, at least according to Gary, and all sold in six figures. Another bestseller was B2 - Keep on the Borderlands (but that was for Basic D&D and was included in many boxed sets). Goodness knows how many of them were sold.

It is possible that 3.x might eventually sell as many rulebooks as 1e. I somehow doubt it, though -- I think the market is smaller than it was in the late 70s/early 80s (many of those who might be playing RPGs are playing CRPGs instead), and this is not necessarily related to the goodness/badness of the current version of the game. It just is.

Remember, too, that the PHB was in print for _eleven_ years (1978-1989). There were even some printed _after _the second edition of the game had been released. I doubt that 3e/3.5e will still be in print in 2011.


----------



## Lanefan

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> And, finally, KM, while you seemed to understand the point that marketing forces and sales do not offer a fair indication of the relative value of a product, you ignored the other half of the equation:  Market forces tend to pull toward the lowest common denominator.



I really noticed this with the change from 1e to 2e; it seemed everything had been dumbed down to appeal to a lower (and younger) common denominator...except the game mechanics.  3e streamlines some of the game mechanics (at a cost), but put back some of the atmosphere that was lost with 2e.

Lanefan


----------



## SteveC

I thought I would jump in here and make a few points, from the perspective of someone who played (and ran) a lot of D&D from the late 70's on. I dearly loved those games, and as I think back on it, some of the best roleplaying fun I ever had was in O/AD&D.

In looking back, I think it was the GM (err "referee") that made the game. You had very few rules for dealing with even basic adventuring tasks, and more than that, you didn't have any sort of uniform resolution mechanic for anything, so it was on the shoulders of the referee to make everything work out. I think that many of the the old-schoolers who still support the "O" rules are coming from that perspective: that is to say, with an excellent ref, GM fiat can make for an incredible game. I wouldn't hesitate to play in the games of almost any of the old-schoolers here on EN World, because they have what it takes to be an excellent GM. So while I've moved on from O/AD&D, I think it's the free form GM fiat from an excellent GM that makes it an excellent game.

...And can also make a game out of nightmares. I played in many games where the ref took the lack of specific rules for a situation to mean that you couldn't do it. Want to climb over the fence surrounding the mansion grounds? Well, you're not a thief, so you can't do it. Want to try and sneak up on the guards by the mansion's gatehouse? You're a fighter, sorry, can't do it. And so on.

My point is that the quality of a O/AD&D game had a lot more to do with the quality of the ref/DM/GM than the current rules. It's been said a number of times here, and I'm going to echo it: 3.X D&D doesn't make a GREAT GM by any stretch of the immagination, but it can make an acceptable one. Now a GREAT GM is still going to be open minded and able to respond player creativity, but that great GM would do that in ANY version of the rules. It's just in the earlier editions, he would have to make up a lot more of the mechanics out of whole cloth. Since I enjoy a wide variety of games, I think there are a lot of great mechanics outside of D20's, so I think that can make for an exceptional campaign...or not!

Two specific points about 3.X versus earlier editions:

First, I'd say that the earlier editions offered a lot more risk outside of combat. Look at some of the early modules and you have a healthy dose of "do this, and rocks fall, the party is dead." In 3.X, you have saves and rolled damage for those sorts of things. In that way, early D&D was much more lethal than 3.X.

But second, actually IN COMBAT, 3.X is much deadlier than the traditional game. Think about it: monsters didn't have ability bonuses do damage, and there were no critical hits or feats (outside of house rules, of course) so if you were fighting an orc warrior and had 30 HP left, you would know that there was absolutely no way you could die in a single round, and the game was much more a game of resource management where you knew what the outcome of a battle was going to be, and the cleric could plan accordingly. In the current rules, I've had a couple of lucky die rolls instantly kill a powerful character. Heck, I watched a troll rip apart a high level fighter and kill him before he was able to act on the first round of combat in my last week's game! That could never have happened in the previous editions of the rules.

I'm not sure what those observations say about O/AD&D versus 3.X, but I at least found 'em interesting to bring up.

--Steve


----------



## Thurbane

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> I have yet to see a '3e = videogamy' thread or post that makes any sense at all. You're obviously using English, since I can understand the glyphs in the order you've placed them, but that's about all the sense it makes.



Funny, I understand him 100%, and totally agree with his point.

Perhaps "tightly structured" might be a better term than "videogamey". The attempted airtightness of the rules and the (perceived or otherwise) sense of greater player entitlement lend themselves to a certain type of gamer who likes to "upend the apple cart" any time he thinks the DMs interpretation of the rules and his do not match.

Though it is possible someone earlier may have hit the nail on the head that this may be less to do with rulesets and more to do with the "Me me me!" mentality that is quite prevalent in society today.


			
				Kormydigar said:
			
		

> 3.X games don't HAVE to be like that. I run a 3.5 campaign and it is going fine. It is the way the rules are presented and interpreted by some newer players. Most of my players have been gaming since the late 70's- early 80's though. I think that makes a huge difference in attitude and how the game is approached.



Not to be a "back in my day" fogey, but my own experiences tend to mirror this.

My own videogame analogy I tend to use is how some players tend to view the DM as little more than a CPU - something that is there only to allow their interaction with the Operating System (rulebooks) and not to add any input of it's own.

My view on 3.X and earlier editions is a little like my view on Hollywood Blockbusters and Independant Cinema - Hollywood might have flashier effects and bigger budgets, but by their very lack of these same factors Independant movies appeal to other people (assuming both types of movie have well written scripts and competent actors). Same reason I might want to go and see a local band with a raw sound instead of going to see a huge international act with highly polished production values.


----------



## Odhanan

Kormydigar said:
			
		

> 3.X games don't HAVE to be like that. I run a 3.5 campaign and it is going fine. It is the way the rules are presented and interpreted by some newer players. Most of my players have been gaming since the late 70's- early 80's though. I think that makes a huge difference in attitude and how the game is approached.



I've got some players who were introduced to RPGs through the D&D game two years ago. I don't have that "videogamey" feel either. Ergo, that's not a trait of newer players. That just depends on how you interpret the rules, no matter what background you're coming from as far as "RPG XPs" are concerned. For instance, if one is an RPG grognard and thinks from the get-go that D&D is "videogamey" or "immature", then that's what the game is going to look like when s/he tries to run it, no question about it.


----------



## Ranes

Got to agree with Odhanan and like-minded posters here. And to pick up on Thurbane's most recent and colourful analogy, I too like to see a band in a small venue but I still appreciate it when they know how to mix their sound.

I think a problem with threads like these is that all concerned - both sides of the argument - have a tendency to over-simplify the issue when we (and please note the inclusiveness of the pronoun) have a point. I recently bought a copy of Eldritch Wizardry (OD&D supplement III) to replace the one I had and carelessly lost over twenty years ago. In the foreward, it says:

"But somewhere along the line, D&D began to lose some of its flavor... This came about as a result of the proliferation of rule sets; while this was great for the company, it was tough on the DM."

Doesn't that speak to the core of this thread? This is from a 1976 supplement. (I can hear Diaglo already. "1976? Bah!")

Whether D&D has lost some or all of its soul or not is moot. When I play - and I play 3.5 - I try to keep the spirit of the game I knew in '78 alive. Same goes for when I DM. The fact that I can create, in the new rules set, an amphibious, half-celestial, lycanthropic were-baboon doesn't change anything. I could do that back then too, if I had a mind to. Of course, it wouldn't have been called that back then and it doesn't get called that now. The fact that I have a set of rules - er, guidelines - now and didn't then is something I find interesting and entertaining but not any more prescriptive than the rules I had then. I have, after all, never played a game of any edition that didn't have at least one house rule in it.

True, I occasionally get a player turning up who has a book and assumes he can use it, because it belongs to the latest edition. But that was true back in the days when the world was black and white, too. And I have players who point to a rule and say, "Broken!" And I remind them that if they want to exploit a rule I do allow, they can bet their bottom electrum piece (they just found, to their surprise) that one of my npcs or critters will have access to the same mechanic.

I chimed in earlier with a claim that I love the new rule set and that's true. I loved previous editions, too - apart from 2e, obviously   - but how much soul there is in a game doesn't depend on the rules you use. It depends on you.


----------



## Odhanan

Great post, Ranes!


----------



## Renfield

Alright, I've got a few minutes so I suppose I can post here. I've been gaming since I was 11, roughly twelve years pretty much. I started off with 2e and am working with 3e (3.0, 3.5, it's all still 3rd edition ) and I've had mixed feelings about the new edition to say the least. The nostalgic part of me that remembers the good old days (bet I'm making you 1e people feel old huh MWAHAHAHA) of Wizards rolling a d4 at first level and praying to whatever diety they follow that they don't roll a 1. I remember adventures seeming a little more alive and fantastic. I essentially look back through rose color glasses. Taking the glasses off I remember the silly fact that the only reason to play a human was because of the level caps on the other races. Level caps that made absolutely no sense whatsoever on races that typically outlived humans. I remembered having a harder time finding certain rules and being annoyed that fighter A was a lot like fighter B mechanically.

3rd edition came along and there was a wonderful mix of things I liked and disliked. I cannot say it's absolutely better, I can only say it's better in some ways. I think they needlessly gimped some spells (especially in the transition of 3.0 to 3.5) and Wizards of the Coast seems to have a philosophy that if it's useful in combat then it's over powered. However I love the fact that you can make an agile destrous fighter as easily as you can make a strong knight. A cavalier or an archer. The creation of skill points is nice as well and Wizards redeemed themselves when they made the Ranger class useful again. 

I do think that the game has become a little more focused on Crunch though. I also believe this to be influenced by computer games and Collectable Card Games and is more a sign of the times rather than a degredation of the system. It's easy to get too focused on the rules as well in 3e but if your group is fairly familiar with the rules and fairly competent then when you get to a point where focusing on rules would hamper the game a DM is encouraged (says so in the almighty rules even) to make a call and move things along.

I am presently in three games (four if you count a Play by Post Call of Cthulhu D20 game). In one game my DM didn't like the rules heavy D&D3e so he started a campaign using Castles and Crusades and the game is running nice and smoothly. I am running an Age of Worms campaign and that is doing fine as well using a mix of 3.0 and 3.5 rules tossing what we don't like from one system in favor of what we do like in another system. My third game is one I'm running for a new group. Gamers of limited or no experience. We are using 3.5 rules and so far I'm noticing something: I feel nostalgic watching these 'younguns' (as my friend calls them, there's really only a couple years in age difference but hey, they're new) get excited at the prospect of fighting their first (or their characters first) troll or see them get engaged as their PC persue their background.

Effectively all I can say is that D&D, present or past, is what you make of it. Why would 3e exist if 2e was so perfect, it was made because numerous gamers likely expressed their desire for change. The changes satisfied some, dissapointed others, and so on. One thing we cannot deny is that the changes helped bring more people to D&D than before. Wizards, for all their corporate evil (such as planning on making the 3.5 so us loyalists would have to shell out an extra $90 all over again, bastards!) they've gotten that part right. So ultimately it's what you make of it.

Oh, for those who hate the Dungeon Punk aspect of the game, it's fairly easy to remedy that. Such as the idiocy of all those silly double weapons i.e. Darth Maul inspired two bladed longsword and the dire flail. Those elements you can toss out with ease.

Sorry if what I've posted simply recapped what everyone else has written. Didn't have time to pour through all the other pages of text. Later.

Z


----------



## Thurbane

Odhanan said:
			
		

> For instance, if one is an RPG grognard and thinks from the get-go that D&D is "videogamey" or "immature", then that's what the game is going to look like when s/he tries to run it, no question about it.



Yet both Kormydigar and myself can see "videogamey" aspects to 3.5, and run games that don't feel "videogamey", ergo you are wrong.   

Seriously, I concur with both Ranes and Renfields posts above. And as I have stated many times now, I don't HATE 3.X. It's what my group currently uses it, and we all enjoy it.

However, the main points of contention for me are -  

1.) Just because 3.X is good, doesn't mean that earlier eds were bad. I think every edition of D&D has aspects that (to my own preference) it does better than others (hence why my own game is a bit of a 3.5/2E/1E hybrid). I'm not so much trying to trash 3.X, but rather defend 1E/2E which some people here are saying were basically unplayable and unenjoyable.

2.) There is NO right or wrong version of D&D, just what an individual or group prefers.

3.) 3.X is not flawless. NO RPG is, and in all likelihood, no RPG system ever will be.


----------



## Thurbane

Ranes said:
			
		

> And to pick up on Thurbane's most recent and colourful analogy, I too like to see a band in a small venue but I still appreciate it when they know how to mix their sound.



 Me too, yet I have seen some great and memorable gigs where the sound mix has been subpar - to me, the energy of the band and crowd enjoyment level are of much more importance than technical aspects like sound mixing.


----------



## Odhanan

> Yet both Kormydigar and myself can see "videogamey" aspects to 3.5, and run games that don't feel "videogamey", ergo you are wrong.



Can't judge, haven't played at your table!    Yet, I can say that I've known a truckload of GMs who thought ill of a game (not necessarily D&D, but often) and actually brought what they hated to the game table when they ran it, regarless of the qualities or flaws of the game itself.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> 1.) Just because 3.X is good, doesn't mean that earlier eds were bad. I think every edition of D&D has aspects that (to my own preference) it does better than others (hence why my own game is a bit of a 3.5/2E/1E hybrid). I'm not so much trying to trash 3.X, but rather defend 1E/2E which some people here are saying were basically unplayable and unenjoyable.




Agree. 



> 2.) There is NO right or wrong version of D&D, just what an individual or group prefers.




Agree.



> 3.) 3.X is not flawless. NO RPG is, and in all likelihood, no RPG system ever will be.




You're mad.

Agree. 

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Can't judge, haven't played at your table!    Yet, I can say that I've known a truckload of GMs who thought ill of a game (not necessarily D&D, but often) and actually brought what they hated to the game table when they ran it, regarless of the qualities or flaws of the game itself.



Defintely agree with that - someone who is determined to dislike a system will not likely do a good job of running it.


----------



## RFisher

Yes. DM dependence is exactly why I prefer classic D&D & other lighter games these days. Any person can make rulings on mundane matters at least as good as any rule simple enough to be playable. YMMV.



			
				hussar said:
			
		

> The point was raised that because 3e has a fairly comprehensive ruleset with a high degree of functionality, it is easier for poor and average DM's to run a decent game. It might not be a great game, but, at least playable. I was then told that rules make no difference whatsoever in the quality of the game, only the DM's abilities do.




I've seen more people who've found 3e too complex for the amount of time they're willing to dedicate to mastering it resulting in it not making them better DMs. It maybe even made them worse. The DMs I know who can master the 3e rules were already perfectly good DMs.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> 3e obviously fits this definition, where "Y" is "All earlier editions." 3e sells better than earlier editions, it supports a stronger market, and it appeals to a wider audience.




I have found that the earlier editions didn't explain themselves well. After 20 years of gaming, it took significant effort for me to discover a preference for earlier editions as I came to better understand them. If there is any truth to more people having genuinely considered all the options & choosing 3e, this is a significant disadvantage for the earlier editions.

Though you can hardly say that 3e & the earlier editions have competed fairly, head-to-head in the market.

(But then, I guess I'm often not a fan of market leaders. I am typing this on a Mac with a Dvorak keyboard. So, perhaps my opinion is not worth consideration.)

Wider audience? I don't know. IME, today's D&D gamers are a much more homogeneous lot than in the 1980s.


----------



## Hussar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> 1.) Just because 3.X is good, doesn't mean that earlier eds were bad. I think every edition of D&D has aspects that (to my own preference) it does better than others (hence why my own game is a bit of a 3.5/2E/1E hybrid). I'm not so much trying to trash 3.X, but rather defend 1E/2E which some people here are saying were basically unplayable and unenjoyable.
> 
> 2.) There is NO right or wrong version of D&D, just what an individual or group prefers.
> 
> 3.) 3.X is not flawless. NO RPG is, and in all likelihood, no RPG system ever will be.




Now  THOSE I agree with 100%.  



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> And, finally, KM, while you seemed to understand the point that marketing forces and sales do not offer a fair indication of the relative value of a product, you ignored the other half of the equation:  Market forces tend to pull toward the lowest common denominator.  There is a reason why romance novels sell, why studios tend to produce more "safe" movies than great movies, etc., etc., etc.
> 
> Because a thing sells well does not mean that it is inherently bad.  However, sales alone should never be taken as a fair indication of relative value.
> 
> (Unless, of course, our only concern is market shares.)
> 
> 
> RC
> 
> 
> EDIT:  I guess I just expect more from a game than a sales pitch that appeals to X number of players.  Frankly, I couldn't care less about the commercials or sales figures when I'm sitting down to play.




There is a slight problem with that.  At some point, if a product is consistently selling better than all other products, it might just be a better product.  A Toyota Corolla was the number one selling car in North America for 10 years (and possibly a little more).  That does point to a confluence of factors which makes it a better car.  Or at least a car which appeals to the most number of people.  

I detest elitist attitudes which state that any sort of streamlining of the rules equates with "dumbing down" or pandering to the lowest common denominator.  Sure, streamlining the rules makes them easier to understand, which means that more people can understand them, but, why is that remotely a bad thing?


----------



## Renfield

On the topic of the present edition of D&D selling better I definitely must say there is something of an unfair advantage. When Wizards bought out D&D they had made bank on Magic sales and that damnable card games (sorry, bitter memories) high sales and they pumped out a rather nice advertising campaign. I've even seen D&D adds return to comics and magazines other than Dungeon and Dragon. Wizards had the money, they created a system and in my opinion explained it rather well, new players who might get confused with those big old scary rule books  had the option of buying those lovely little starter kits (and if you can't learn at least the basics from one of those... well, I'm sorry) which helped bring in new players. So you have a powerful advertising campaign, easy to understand rules, a book with a decent layout (Those tables certainly made things a bit easier for me) and lets not forget the flashy Dungeon Punk art (I mean where in the older editions would you find a elven rogue with the piercings befitting a Goth-punk masochist?) and you have a recipe that will appeal to the newer players (I'm not sure of the exact demographic, young males likely lower classmen in highschool? Correct me if I'm wrong) and increase sales.

The name Wizards carried more than a little weight and probably brought in more than a few Magic: The Gathering players as well.

Now, Toyota Corolla analogy aside, this does not necessarily make this a better system, perhaps a better product in it's own way with the ease of understanding and the layout or whatnot, though not necessarily as far as the rules go. Just like an older edition of D&D, while not explaining things as well as they probably could didn't mean the system itself was bad.

I wanted to put my own analogy in here but realized it was simply me bashing the New York times best seller list which would be decidedly off topic.


----------



## FireLance

Thurbane said:
			
		

> 1.) Just because 3.X is good, doesn't mean that earlier eds were bad. I think every edition of D&D has aspects that (to my own preference) it does better than others (hence why my own game is a bit of a 3.5/2E/1E hybrid). I'm not so much trying to trash 3.X, but rather defend 1E/2E which some people here are saying were basically unplayable and unenjoyable.



To me, earlier editions weren't bad, but since I find 3.Xe to be an improvement over earlier editions, it does mean that earlier editions are not as good as 3.Xe. Of course, that's just my opinion.


----------



## wedgeski

Renfield said:
			
		

> The name Wizards carried more than a little weight and probably brought in more than a few Magic: The Gathering players as well.



I agree with this and, in fact, anecdotally I have at least one friend who did exactly that. But I am also interested in Wizards getting credit where credit is due. For one they hired designers who, it seems to me, were more than up to the task of creating a new edition of the game. They pumped real money into a design and playtesting process that created a rock-solid 3rd Edition with only a few wrinkles. They (bravely/selfishly in equal measure I guess) created a framework for the d20/D&D brand to explode with the SRD. IMO Wizards did everything they could to ensure the brand was rejuvenated.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> There is a slight problem with that.  At some point, if a product is consistently selling better than all other products, it might just be a better product.  A Toyota Corolla was the number one selling car in North America for 10 years (and possibly a little more).  That does point to a confluence of factors which makes it a better car.  Or at least a car which appeals to the most number of people.




All it points to is one of several possibilities:

(1)  A better car,
(2)  A better marketing stategy,
(3)  A cheaper car where the things that make another car better are considered extraneous, or the market cannot bear the cost of a better car,
(4)  A market that is not informed about, or does not care about, which car is actually best (this actually ties into 2 & 3),
(5)  The car not directly competing with another, superior, car, because that car is no longer being made.

I am sure there are more possibilities, but those are the ones that come to the top of my head.  Market forces tend to lead to the lowest common denominator.  There is an economic theory, for example, that says that if you can make the best cars in the world, or inferior snow shovels, that you should make whichever will create the greatest profit, regardless of quality.  Moreover, you can sell those inferior snow shovels to people who can make better ones if it is cheaper for them to buy yours than it is to make better ones themselves.  Meanwhile, you're left buying the lousy cars made by the guys who can make better snow shovels, but instead buy yours.  Obviously, you might also be able to make a bundle by selling specialty, luxury items, but you will sell fewer of these and you will have to sell them at a higher price point.

Archaeological data suggests that the above market force effect occurred consistently even in prehistoric cultures.

This is different, btw, from saying that streamlining the rules is an indication of pandering to the LCD.  It is simply a statement that says that market forces have very little to do with how good a product actually is.  This is true when pointing to 1e sales figures, too.  That a 1e module greatly outsold every 3e module to date doesn't mean that the 1e module was better than the 3e modules.  Sales figures simply do not allow us to draw this sort of conclusion.



> I detest elitist attitudes which state that any sort of streamlining of the rules equates with "dumbing down" or pandering to the lowest common denominator.  Sure, streamlining the rules makes them easier to understand, which means that more people can understand them, but, why is that remotely a bad thing?




Allow me to state here and now that the 3.X rules _are not complicated enough_ for my personal tastes.  I have actually gone to the effort of complicating them!  Or, to be fairer, _some parts_ of the rules were over-complicated (which I streamlined) while other parts were under-complicated (which I beefed up).

"Streamlining" itself is, almost by definition in this context, "dumbing down".  It is arguable whether or not this is a good or bad thing in almost any case.  The real determinant, IMHO, is whether or not the streamlined rules can do everything that the un-streamlined rules were able to do.  

Pandering to the lowest common denominator, however, has more to do with attitude, IMHO.  The idea that players need something every level, that rust monsters are "too hard", that complexity = not fun, that failure or the potential for real failure = not fun, that the rules have to fall into the best intrepation for the players, that the DM should just say Yes, that restrictions for flavour = bad DM, pander to the lowest common denominator.  These are not ideas inherent in the ruleset, although there are a lot of things WotC is doing, IMHO, that promote these sorts of ideas.

When I DM, I assume that the players have an attention span.  I assume that they are capable of acting maturely.  I assume that they are willing to take responsibility for their choices, and for the consequences thereof.  I assume that they want to face real challenges, with a real chance of failure and a real chance of success.  I assume that they do not want me to fudge die rolls, and in turn will play fairly themselves.  In short, I assume that they will act as adults (even when they are not).  

Many of the articles I have read on the WotC site make me believe that the authors do not believe the same things.

Pandering to the lowest common denominator increases sales.  Pure and simple.  It is why McDonalds has over 40 billion sold, why dollar stores spring up like weeds, why most of the shows on TV suck, and why we get sound bites instead of in-depth news analysis.  There is a market for gourmet food, better merchandise, good television, and actual coverage, but it is a much smaller market.

Again, the d20 System offers a great ruleset to build a game from.  It requires tweaking if you really want to make it your own, but that is true for all rulesets.  It does things, IMHO, that neither 1e or 2e did well, and I can tweak what I liked from 1e and 2e back into it.  

But please do not point to sales figures as evidence of greatness.  McDonalds may sell more burgers than Licks, but I know which one tastes better.



RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

wedgeski said:
			
		

> I agree with this and, in fact, anecdotally I have at least one friend who did exactly that. But I am also interested in Wizards getting credit where credit is due. For one they hired designers who, it seems to me, were more than up to the task of creating a new edition of the game. They pumped real money into a design and playtesting process that created a rock-solid 3rd Edition with only a few wrinkles. They (bravely/selfishly in equal measure I guess) created a framework for the d20/D&D brand to explode with the SRD. IMO Wizards did everything they could to ensure the brand was rejuvenated.





The SRD is the single greatest contribution to the rpg community since the game was first created.  I doubt, were it not for the SRD,  and the excellent 3rd party options that it made possible, that I would have bought into the current edition.


RC


----------



## Lanefan

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Allow me to state here and now that the 3.X rules _are not complicated enough_ for my personal tastes.  I have actually gone to the effort of complicating them!  Or, to be fairer, _some parts_ of the rules were over-complicated (which I streamlined) while other parts were under-complicated (which I beefed up).
> 
> "Streamlining" itself is, almost by definition in this context, "dumbing down".  It is arguable whether or not this is a good or bad thing in almost any case.  The real determinant, IMHO, is whether or not the streamlined rules can do everything that the un-streamlined rules were able to do.
> 
> Pandering to the lowest common denominator, however, has more to do with attitude, IMHO.  The idea that players need something every level, that rust monsters are "too hard", that complexity = not fun, that failure or the potential for real failure = not fun, that the rules have to fall into the best intrepation for the players, that the DM should just say Yes, that restrictions for flavour = bad DM, pander to the lowest common denominator.  These are not ideas inherent in the ruleset, although there are a lot of things WotC is doing, IMHO, that promote these sorts of ideas.
> 
> When I DM, I assume that the players have an attention span.  I assume that they are capable of acting maturely.  I assume that they are willing to take responsibility for their choices, and for the consequences thereof.  I assume that they want to face real challenges, with a real chance of failure and a real chance of success.  I assume that they do not want me to fudge die rolls, and in turn will play fairly themselves.  In short, I assume that they will act as adults (even when they are not).



Well said! 

There's one more mindset you missed, though: "if WotC or some key individual within WotC says it, it becomes canon to the game".  In one's own gaming group, it's possible to counter this - sometimes with effort - but overall the direction they set is going to be somewhat by default the direction the game slowly goes.

Lanefan


----------



## Raven Crowking

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Well said!




Thank you.  I'm surprised that no one's told me how off-base and wrong I am yet.    



> There's one more mindset you missed, though: "if WotC or some key individual within WotC says it, it becomes canon to the game".  In one's own gaming group, it's possible to counter this - sometimes with effort - but overall the direction they set is going to be somewhat by default the direction the game slowly goes.




Yeah, but that's true for all editions of all rpgs, isn't it?  I mean, what TSR did in the old days was often considered "official" by the same type of players. 

What I would love to see more of in Dragon, really, are "how to" articles.  It seems to me that too many of these young whippersnappers don't feel they can (or know how to) alter the rules, or use the rules to create something that is uniquely theirs.  Those were the articles I loved from the old magazine!


----------



## Thurbane

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Yeah, but that's true for all editions of all rpgs, isn't it?  I mean, what TSR did in the old days was often considered "official" by the same type of players.



That is true, but I am seeing more and more instances of almost religious fanatacism in worship of the almighty RAW, and an underlying "sense of entitlement" that anything added by WotC is canon and MUST be allowed in all games. Also, an underlying current that adjusting the RAW for your own game is fundmantally wrong, since the RAW is so infallible that any changes to it must inherently be wrong.

I don't primarily blame the current ruleset for this trend, though...


----------



## Lanefan

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> What I would love to see more of in Dragon, really, are "how to" articles.  It seems to me that too many of these young whippersnappers don't feel they can (or know how to) alter the rules, or use the rules to create something that is uniquely theirs.  Those were the articles I loved from the old magazine!



Many of those old Drag-Mag's had articles that in effect *did* alter the rules in one way or another; some of those suggested alterations wound up as Unearthed Arcana, for better or worse...the fun part was watching the game in effect develop before our eyes.  And of course, the feeling was that if they could alter the game, *we* could alter the game... 

Lanefan


----------



## Ranes

Odhanan said:
			
		

> ...Yet, I can say that I've known a truckload of GMs who thought ill of a game (not necessarily D&D, but often) and actually brought what they hated to the game table when they ran it, regarless of the qualities or flaws of the game itself.




So if I may paraphrase, it's not the rules you bring to the game, it's the game you bring to the rules.

If that's not twisting your meaning, I can only say, "Amen."

Lanefan: that's a good point. 3.x is inclusive of what players have brought to previous editions. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that not just UA but all of 3.x is the summation of that process. Warts and all. Look at it this way: if I met somebody who said to me, "I've been playing OD&D since day one. I've written a whole host of my own rules to accommodate the game that's grown out of that. Why should I buy 3.x anything?"

I'd say, "No reason at all. Any room in your group?"


----------



## Thurbane

Ranes said:
			
		

> I'd say, "No reason at all. Any room in your group?"



Testify!


----------



## Hussar

> That is true, but I am seeing more and more instances of almost religious fanatacism in worship of the almighty RAW, and an underlying "sense of entitlement" that anything added by WotC is canon and MUST be allowed in all games. Also, an underlying current that adjusting the RAW for your own game is fundmantally wrong, since the RAW is so infallible that any changes to it must inherently be wrong.




See, now I think this is just a reason to stop paying too much attention to web boards.

We've already driven some pretty deep stakes into the idea of player entitlement.  When RC asked if he as DM should nix the idea of a character that didn't fit into his campaign, the overwhelming response was "No problem".  When I asked how many people had actually seen, in person, a player with this attitude, virtually no one had.

Of the around 50 gamers I've dealt with over OpenRPG in the past three years, only one came even close to what you are saying.



			
				RC said:
			
		

> Pandering to the lowest common denominator, however, has more to do with attitude, IMHO. The idea that players need something every level, that rust monsters are "too hard", that complexity = not fun, that failure or the potential for real failure = not fun, that the rules have to fall into the best intrepation for the players, that the DM should just say Yes, that restrictions for flavour = bad DM, pander to the lowest common denominator. These are not ideas inherent in the ruleset, although there are a lot of things WotC is doing, IMHO, that promote these sorts of ideas.




Ok, reading too much into a throwaway article on the WOTC board of how someone would design a monster and then taking that for policy is a bit much.  Never mind that in the mind of a very large number of people, many of whom are long time gamers, he was right.  "Gotcha" creatures are one of the poorest examples of design there is.  Why waste a page in the Monster Manual, when you can do the EXACT same thing in a paragraph in the traps section of the DMG?  It's not a case of pandering, or that the creature was "too hard", it was that the creature as written is not terribly well designed.  

Players need something every level.  Well, that's always been in the game as well.  At least for casters.  Pretty much most classes got some sort of bennie nearly every level in every edition of the game.  Why is this suddenly a shock to people?

To me, it's more a case of the design of the game being more transparent.  You mention needing more "how to" type articles in Dragon.  Note, that sort of thing has been funneled into Dungeon now, but that's beside the point.  Why?  If the design of the game is more transparent, if we actually know the reasoning behind why the fighter gets a feat every other level, then do we really need hand holding to create new stuff?  

Way back, I mentioned creating specialty priests.  The problem there was that almost no guidance was given beyond some very vague points.  In addition, there was nothing to be found anywhere about WHY a cleric gets what he does.  The DM had to figure it out entirely by himself.  Now, with a bazillion websites out there, including WOTC's and EN World's, we can talk directly with the designers and pick their brains.  We can read Monte Cook's blog and learn.  Or Eric Mona's.  Or a number of others.  

3e has become the most transparent game of the three editions.  We have guidelines (NOT RULES) for wealth, encounter design, monster design, etc.  We have a wealth of resources available for the game that simply weren't there for earlier editions.  I think this is why a lot of people get turned off.  They suddenly realize that they aren't unique snowflakes and maybe, just maybe, the ideas they have aren't quite as good as they thought they were.

Speaking entirely for myself, my DMing has improved more in the past four or five years than in the past twenty simply because I feel that I have a ruleset that I can rely on and because I have such a wealth of information to choose from.  Note the "I feel" in that statement.  YMMV and all that.


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> See, now I think this is just a reason to stop paying too much attention to web boards.



I see your point, but I still don't believe that the number of such postings I have seen can be *totally* unrepresentative of at least a percentage of gamers out there.


----------



## MerricB

Hussar said:
			
		

> Way back, I mentioned creating specialty priests.  The problem there was that almost no guidance was given beyond some very vague points.  In addition, there was nothing to be found anywhere about WHY a cleric gets what he does.  The DM had to figure it out entirely by himself.




Incidentally, Speciality priests are my #1 example in 2e of bad design. _Forgotten Realms Adventures_ raised the bad design to an artform.

AD&D had the cleric and the druid, both classes designed _as a whole_. XP tables, spell lists, combat ability, etc.

2E decided "Well, if we randomly choose some domains, add some weapons and a granted ability, and choose the druid XP table, all will be fine". I'm sorry. No. The druid XP table in 1e was extremely unusual and required the druid's abilities to function.

They might have got it right later in the development cycle, but early attempts on speciality priests in 2e are horrible design.

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> Incidentally, Speciality priests are my #1 example in 2e of bad design. _Forgotten Realms Adventures_ raised the bad design to an artform.
> 
> AD&D had the cleric and the druid, both classes designed _as a whole_. XP tables, spell lists, combat ability, etc.
> 
> 2E decided "Well, if we randomly choose some domains, add some weapons and a granted ability, and choose the druid XP table, all will be fine". I'm sorry. No. The druid XP table in 1e was extremely unusual and required the druid's abilities to function.
> 
> They might have got it right later in the development cycle, but early attempts on speciality priests in 2e are horrible design.
> 
> Cheers!



I can agree to a point about early attempts - but I felt speciality priests, as presented in Complete Priests Handbook, were something that really added depth to a campaign if the DM was willing to do the work (which incidentally, I was), rather than a Cleric of the God of Flowers and Sunshine tromping around in platemail, swinging a mace and hurling Spriritual Weapons around.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I can agree to a point about early attempts - but I felt speciality priests, as presented in Complete Priests Handbook, were something that really added depth to a campaign if the DM was willing to do the work (which incidentally, I was), rather than a Cleric of the God of Flowers and Sunshine tromping around in platemail, swinging a mace and hurling Spriritual Weapons around.




I loved the concept of speciality priests in Complete Priest. I hated the implementation. There were so many bad assumptions.

Class design is one of the most complex tasks in D&D - all versions. If d20 designers wanted to do the work, then creating specialty priest classes would be entirely possible with 3e. (We sort of have it with a few prestige classes, in fact).

The DIY school of class design is incredibly tricky - especially for the cleric, which is so powerful in 3e simply because it is a "necessary" but unpopular class. (I wonder if removing it in 4e would work?)

I especially detest the "spheres" of magic approach to spells - I'm not particularly fond of schools and specialisation, actually. I prefer entire spell lists to be created (e.g. 1e Illusionist & Druid, and 3e Ranger, Paladin, Druid and Bard) rather than rolling all lists into one. 

Cheers!


----------



## BroccoliRage

The Corrolla sold so well because it is cheap. Japanese cars are disposable, your drive them into the ground and buy another one. There may be a couple of exceptions, as I'm sure some Fast and The Furious knucklehead will poin out to me, but for the most part that is how it is. Not really a good analogy for 3e vs (A)D&D.

I can illustrate how 3e is not D&D. I stopped playing AD&D in 1999. I bought a boxed basic set that year, and couldn't find anyone to play with. It had lost of premade characters with the old Neverwinter Nights artwork. I moved on to other interests. I joined the Navy in 2001, and in 2003 I was invited by a fellow sailor to play a D&D game. I showed up to the game at the barracks a little late, with a character rolled up and some dice I had just bought. I sat down to wait for the DM to work me in, and watched how the other guys played for about an hour, to get a feel for house rules and the overall style of the game. I noticed their books were different-looking, but I attributed this to another reprint. As I was watching, I didn't understand what these kids were doing at all. The dice rolls were wrong, the characters sheets looked to me from across the table to be needlessly convoluted, "Fortitude" checks were being asked for, "Feats" were being declared. I was completely lost. I knew what certain words meant, but they only seemd to cosmetically be the same. 

My first thought? "These kids aren't playing D&D, this must be some extremely house ruled mutation." I asked to look at the books, and I wasn't familiar with them at all. The artwork was nicer, the layout was very eye pleasing, but I wasn't looking at D&D. WOTC had done away with the system I liked. Here I was, a 21 year old guy who had been playing D&D since I was 7, and I was lost. I sat in on the game anyway, it was chance to roll some dice (though I didn't know what for, not that that is a big deal) and drink some beer. I went to the gaming store, bought the 3e rulebooks, read them, and decided that there was no reason to switch to this new system. It wasn't bad, but it was so different that if I were to use it and call it D&D, I would really render my old books pointless, and throw out all the labor I had done. No need for that.

Now, if I look at any OOP version of D&D being played, after a couple minutes of watching I can immediately recognize it as D&D and might even be able to tell you exactly what is happening with no information really being given to me. I may even be able to recognize what edition is being played. Why is this? Congruency. Continuity. The same basic core lies at the heart of every edition of AD&D, the mechanics mutate to a degree but are all largely interchangable, the formulas are often instantly recognizable by a player of any edition. Risk Lord of The Rings, Risk 2010 (right number?), Castle Risk, and Classic Risk are all the same game. You can immediately recognize them as Risk. Same thing with the various Monopoly mutations. While they are each unique, all of them are the same and are easily recognized as such. The same goes with (A)D&D. IF you were to buy the Risk name, apply it to Parcheesi, and sell a bundle, you made a great marketing move. However, it's not really Risk anymore. Some folks may pick up the game and begin playing it, and of course they'll say they are playing Risk. That's fine, but those who remember what Risk was before the purchase will say, "That's not really Risk." 

d20 is a different animal. It is not an inferior animal, though I don't prefer it. I prefer dogs to cats, but neither is really superior to the other. I'm not a WOTC hater, in fact I subsribe to Dungeon and occasionally buy 3e books that provide neat ideas (that aren't too over the top). But really, Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons is just a name. Think on it. Would it have made as much money as it has if it had been released and called simply, "D20 Fantasy"? Of course not, WOTC bought the name and made good use of it. I'm just not a fan of what the name was applied to, and I feel that the system is not the same as the older systems which stayed largely congruent from edition to edition. It's a different game, not a worse game. There were differences, but the game had more or less the same approach and application of formula throughout.

I also think that 3e would not have done quite as well if AD&D/BD&D had been kept around. There was thirty years of material in place that was perfectly usable, and releasing another edition side by side would be like setting a tortoise in a race against Ferrari with a head start. It would be a bad business move, particularly in a market that has a large amount of collecting/hoarding nerds like us. This is why A/BD&D was done away with, not because the system was bad. The Beach Casters had to breathe new life into a passtime/market (table top rpg's)  that was pretty related to their own (Collectible card crap) and since they acquired TSR, they now had the most recognizable name in rpg's and made it their own. That's damn good business. I think you'll find that the recent success of D&D is a fad, however. The 3e kids will go through a recession as well, (indeed, it seems one has already begun).


I'm not anti WOTC or 3e, but I don't agree that "It's all D&D". Parcheesi and Risk are not the same game, no matter what name you apply to them. The same goes for d20 and AD&D, though that has nothing to do with system superiority.


----------



## Thurbane

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> I'm not anti WOTC or 3e, but I don't agree that "It's all D&D". Parcheesi and Risk are not the same game, no matter what name you apply to them. The same goes for d20 and AD&D, though that has nothing to do with system superiority.



Great post, well written, and I agree with a lot of it.

However, I think that saying 3E is not D&D may be a little much. I personally believe that enough of the core concepts (race, class, levels, spells, the vancian system, etc.) remain to qualify it as D&D. I can certainly agree that the leap to 3E saw many more radical departures than any previous edition change, and IMHO, many of them not in a good way.


----------



## Hussar

> The Corrolla sold so well because it is cheap. Japanese cars are disposable, your drive them into the ground and buy another one.




So, the fact that it had one of the highest reliability ratings of any car on the road makes Japanese cars cheap and disposable?  Highest customer satisfaction?  Nah, couldn't possibly be that.  If it's foreign made, it has to be crap right?  Disposable crap at that.  Couldn't possibly be that someone made the best  product for the price and sold it.  

Sorry, way off topic.

I agree with much of what BR says.  Although the "if it's not AD&D it's not D&D" is a bit much.  People tend to forget that the guys making AD&D WENT OUT OF BUSINESS.  Granted, a lot of that had to do with mismanagement.  But, let's face it, a lot of that had to do with people dropping out of the game because of unbelievably bad products being trotted out the door.



> think you'll find that the recent success of D&D is a fad,




Well, it's been a six year fad, so, I'm not sure if fad is the word you're looking for.


----------



## Renfield

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> The Corrolla sold so well because it is cheap. Japanese cars are disposable, your drive them into the ground and buy another one.




Heh, okay, I may be overstepping my bounds, especially seeing as I don't know much about cars. I do remember, however, looking through a Consumer Reports Automobile Buyers Guide about five years ago and couldn't find a single Toyota brand vehicle on any of the lists of vehicles known to malfunction or those that had low satisfaction etc etc. There's also the fact that while Toyota is a Japanese company they also have factories here in America so while you're technically buying a japanese vehicle many of them are made in America.

Aside from that I liked your post Broccoli but I can't agree with you. Earlier edititions of D&D may have had elements that were recognizable and so on, hell I should know I was introduced to D&D via 2e and after purchasing a bunch of original edition and AD&D stuff I was still able to recognize and even play after awhile. However my view is the D&D editions you were familiar with had been altered about as much as they could be without drastically changing things. Hell I even consider the Player's Option (love 'em or hate 'em) a sort of 2.5 that probably would have morphed into 3e it had actually proven successful. When it wasn't I think it was realized that the game mechanics that had been worked with since the beginning had finally been worked as much as it could and if the game were to improve or advance they needed a more drastic change. They made one and worked it well and still managed to keep the core alive. The core being more "My Dwarven Fighter Drunor charges past the two Orc warriors to swing his battleaxe at the Shaman shouting a bloodcurdling "meet yer filthy God you piece 'o goblin dung"" as opposed to THAC0 and Save's vs. Wands.

Was 3e the best possible change that could happen to D&D? No, that would require perfection which is impossible, however it's still D&D. Can it be better? Yes. Thankfully the SRD was made and that allowed things like Castles and Crusades to come into fruition. Is 3e Dungeons and Dragons actually Dungeons and Dragons? Yes. Hell, when it was first published they even went to the effort to push a very important classical element while keeping a new (if not always approved, icky dungeon punk) flavor on it: Delving into dungeons and fighting scary dragons for their treasure. WotC definitely worked hard to make sure this was not simply some fantasy rpg but was actually a *new* edition of D&D. To continue tweaking the older mechanics would have been like adding far too much to a painting or drawing and distracting from the actual picture.



			
				BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> I think you'll find that the recent success of D&D is a fad, however. The 3e kids will go through a recession as well, (indeed, it seems one has already begun).




I don't know what you're talking about here. D&D seems to be going strong in my neighborhood and I live in Alaska. It's much easier to find a group now (if I needed to) and if the WotC product lineup and website are even a small indication, as well as the amount of people who defend any bashing of WotC (hey, the spells in 3.0 weren't over powered, the DM's were just wusses who didn't know how to handle them is all   ) are any indication of things I think D&D has a strong enough following to continue for quite some time. If that's not an indication, Dungeon and Dragon magazines are doing quite well as well and that always seemed to me like a good measure of how the game itself was doing. 

Things might shift and change slightly here and there but I don't think a recession is coming on any time soon. Hell, I think it could undergo another massive religious attack and still keep trucking better than TSR did.

Anyway, just my thoughts.


----------



## dcas

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> The Corrolla sold so well because it is cheap. Japanese cars are disposable, your drive them into the ground and buy another one. There may be a couple of exceptions, as I'm sure some Fast and The Furious knucklehead will poin out to me, but for the most part that is how it is. Not really a good analogy for 3e vs (A)D&D.




I've been driving my Corolla for 8+ years. It's far and away the more reliable of the two cars I've owned (the other was an ancient Ford Taurus). Yes, you can drive Japanese cars into the ground, but that's because they last long enough to be driven into the ground! I would not hesitate to buy another Toyota when the time comes.

I think by making this analogy you are providing fodder for those who might claim that 3e is an improvement over 1e/2e (just as the Corolla was an improvement on what American car mfrs were putting out at the time).


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> We've already driven some pretty deep stakes into the idea of player entitlement.  When RC asked if he as DM should nix the idea of a character that didn't fit into his campaign, the overwhelming response was "No problem".  When I asked how many people had actually seen, in person, a player with this attitude, virtually no one had.




Yes, when one asks the question overtly, we did drive deep stakes into it.  However, as I am sure you will recall, a shockingly large number of people also agreed, in effect, that "railroading is whatever a player says it is"...which is perhaps the most overt statement of player entitlement I have ever heard.  I seem to recall you agreeing in that thread that those results re-opened the issue, but I could be wrong?

Also, while the poll about Warforged Ninja in a Prehistoric Setting was overwhelmingly supportive, the issue has been revisited since then with different results.  



> Ok, reading too much into a throwaway article on the WOTC board of how someone would design a monster and then taking that for policy is a bit much.




Perhaps.  I, for one, never think that an article appearing on the WOTC board is a "throwaway", though, and wonder exactly how you come to that conclusion.  Perhaps because, if it is not "throwaway", it is evidence to the point that I am making?  Since there was more than one monster re-design article, I wonder how you can decide that you even know to which I refer.....?

Moreover, you then say, 

in the mind of a very large number of people, many of whom are long time gamers, he was right.  "Gotcha" creatures are one of the poorest examples of design there is.  Why waste a page in the Monster Manual, when you can do the EXACT same thing in a paragraph in the traps section of the DMG?  It's not a case of pandering, or that the creature was "too hard", it was that the creature as written is not terribly well designed.​
which seems to indicate that we are talking about something more than just a throwaway.  I don't believe that rust monsters are "gotcha" creatures; they are interesting challenge creatures.  And, yes, they might strike fear into the hearts of the metal-clad, but I don't see that as a weakness of design.  The rust monster has made it into every edition thus far because it is a strong, iconic monster, not because it sucks.

I don't believe that ogre magi need to be changed away from their mythological basis; doing so is absurd to me as saying that we need to rewrite housecats to make them more like goblins.  When you begin removing parts of the flavour of the game to make things easier, you are moving in the wrong direction, IMHO.



> Players need something every level.  Well, that's always been in the game as well.  At least for casters.  Pretty much most classes got some sort of bennie nearly every level in every edition of the game.  Why is this suddenly a shock to people?




Are hit points and new spells suddenly bennies?  There is at least one thread ongoing on EN World right now that would argue this isn't so.  And, if so, why make sure that casters get something else at each level?  Why should anyone get something other than hit points?  The answer is simple:  Players do not need something every level, and that has not always been in the game.



> To me, it's more a case of the design of the game being more transparent.  You mention needing more "how to" type articles in Dragon.  Note, that sort of thing has been funneled into Dungeon now, but that's beside the point.  Why?  If the design of the game is more transparent, if we actually know the reasoning behind why the fighter gets a feat every other level, then do we really need hand holding to create new stuff?




The articles in Dungeon, right now, are far more of the "Here are some examples" type than the "How To" type (with the exception of Dungeoncraft).  In any event, the old Dragon included many articles that discussed design philosophy and ideas for creating locations and for using the rules to create an adventure/world/city that you wanted to.  The new edition suffers, IMHO, from the belief that the "kitchen sink" approach is the best (and/or only) approach that a "good DM" will take.  This simply isn't so.  

What I would like to see are articles that discus how to limit the materials to make a cohesive setting.  First off, articles on the creation of setting always interest me (even though I have been doing this for Lo! These Many Years).  Second off, these sorts of articles open the game up for the creation of unique worlds, and give new DMs something to point to when their players claim doing so is unfair.



> Way back, I mentioned creating specialty priests.  The problem there was that almost no guidance was given beyond some very vague points.  In addition, there was nothing to be found anywhere about WHY a cleric gets what he does.  The DM had to figure it out entirely by himself.  Now, with a bazillion websites out there, including WOTC's and EN World's, we can talk directly with the designers and pick their brains.  We can read Monte Cook's blog and learn.  Or Eric Mona's.  Or a number of others.




Which is nice, but that's an Internet effect, not an edition effect.



> 3e has become the most transparent game of the three editions.  We have guidelines (NOT RULES) for wealth, encounter design, monster design, etc.




Glad to hear those are only guidelines.  I guess that means all the "earlier editions didn't take advantage of the rules in setting creation" arguments are officially over?



> I think this is why a lot of people get turned off.  They suddenly realize that they aren't unique snowflakes and maybe, just maybe, the ideas they have aren't quite as good as they thought they were.




Not sure what you are trying to say here, apart from using the "special snowflake" type dismissive language from KM's posts earlier in this thread.  Explain?


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

*More on Rust Monsters & "Gotcha"*

The whole idea of "Gotcha" monsters is actually sorta weird, IMHO.  What qualifies a monster as a "Gotcha" monster and not just a monster?  Why don't we say "The ogre hit you with a club -- Gotcha!"?

The answer, in my mind, is that what we are referring to here as a "Gotcha" monster is any creature that does non-standard damage (i.e., it attacks something other than your hit points) and/or any creature against which standard tactics are ineffective (i.e., wading in with armour and your magic sword isn't a good idea).

On the surface, both of these things are good things.

It is good that monsters attack things other than your hit points.  Ability damage, level draining, etc., help to define monsters.  In this respect, the rust monster is very well defined.

It is good that some creatures require unusual tactics.  If nothing else, this means that the _players_ as well as the _characters_ are challenged.  It also means that there is no character build which is the best build for facing all challenges.  When a rust monster shows up, the lightly armoured and cheaply armed get to face a combat challenge.  This is a good thing.

So, what is the real problem with the rust monster?

CR.

The CR system assumes average wealth per level.  The rust monster can throw off this calculation and make later encounters much harder than they were intended to be.  Since you cannot predict what equipment will remain after the attack, it is harder to determine what opponents are appropriate.  

This was less of a problem in earlier editions because, while many things have become less deadly in 3e, combat has become potentially more so.  This is where 3e really can become unbalanced fast....where it is shown most to be built like a tripod that cannot stand if one leg is kicked out.  Change the parameters of the characters during an adventure, and you'd better get lucky, because things just became nigh impossible to balance.

The possible solutions to this are (1) change the characters so that they are less dependent upon their equipment or (2) change the monsters to have less impact on equipment.  

The WotC article chose the latter; I chose the former.

It is the reasoning given for the decision that is suspect, and in my mind dismissive of the maturity of the game's players.


RC


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

The rust monster is a creature with no range attack at all, and it doesn't move unreasonably quickly.  Therefore any party that understands basic tactics can beat it.

It should be CR0 imo.


----------



## DestroyYouAlot

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> The whole idea of "Gotcha" monsters is actually sorta weird, IMHO.  What qualifies a monster as a "Gotcha" monster and not just a monster?  Why don't we say "The ogre hit you with a club -- Gotcha!"?
> 
> The answer, in my mind, is that what we are referring to here as a "Gotcha" monster is any creature that does non-standard damage (i.e., it attacks something other than your hit points) and/or any creature against which standard tactics are ineffective (i.e., wading in with armour and your magic sword isn't a good idea).
> 
> [WELL-WRITTEN AND RIGHT-MINDED POST CLIPPED]
> 
> The WotC article chose the latter; I chose the former.




So _that's_ the "monster design article" we're debating?  I gotta start paying better attention, I had no idea.  

Quick aside, and then we can get back to the Hatfields vs. the McCoys:

If this is the definition we're going for (monsters that make the party think and/or groan), then let me be the first to say:  I Love Gotcha Monsters.  And sometimes it can be as easy as throwing in something converted from an old edition that the group hasn't seen in a few years (if at all), or just tacking on a different description to a stock monster.  

Case in point:  The abishai.  Straight outta MMII (1e), and re-introduced to 3e with Monsters of Faerun, if your players either don't know about it, or don't remember it, is _awesome_.  It looks like a dragon, or some kind of funky draconic template-y creature.  It's got nasty enchanting and illusionary spell-like abilities to mess with the party.  It's got damage reduction.  And, until it decides to summon some lemures, it's not going to occur to most people that it's a devil, or any kind of outsider at all.  So, due to its having regeneration against everything short of holy water and blessed weapons, they can't kill the damn thing, and it may never occur to them to try those things.  My guys figured it out, but they just plain didn't have any holy water on them, and didn't have silver shavings to make any - they just chopped it into pieces, buried it six feet down, and left.  Had a hell of a time with that one.

I'm a 3e guy, but this is one thing that 1e, in particular, had in spades over 3e - funky, pain-in-the-ass, gotcha monsters.  (Rot grubs, anyone?)


----------



## Henry

DestroyYouAlot said:
			
		

> I'm a 3e guy, but this is one thing that 1e, in particular, had in spades over 3e - funky, pain-in-the-ass, gotcha monsters.  (Rot grubs, anyone?)




EAR SEEKERS! Loved those things - they were the reason a rogue uses a hearing cone with wire mesh on the front.


----------



## WayneLigon

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> The whole idea of "Gotcha" monsters is actually sorta weird, IMHO.  What qualifies a monster as a "Gotcha" monster and not just a monster?  Why don't we say "The ogre hit you with a club -- Gotcha!"?




A Gotcha! monster is a monster that exists solely because adventurers exist and do certain things for the sole purpose either damaging adventurers or screwing said adventurers out of hard-won resources and equipment (or as a faux-balance tool for a campaign that has 'gotten out of hand'. Given out too many magic items? Trot out the Disenchanter!). It's a heavy-handed and usually nonsensical creature. In the same vein as this are creatures that exist solely to stop, block or nullify a specific character class ability. 

All they usually serve to do is make would-be bold adventurers into whining, cringing accountants who want to map corridors with protractors and laser sights. 

The old cursed magic items are another form of Gotcha monster. Nothing says 'fun adventuring' like finally winning through a tough adventure to find that the cool item you thought you were getting is acutally not only worthless but now you have to go on a special side adventure just so you can get rid of it.

Once in a great while, these can be used to good effect. Like, maybe once or twice a campaign lasting several years. Similarly, an adventure dealing with a cursed item can be a well-done thing frought with honest peril.

The way it almost always works, though, they are a smothering inconvenience, and a way for the DM to laugh at the 'stupid' players. "Man, you didn't think to stop and _sniff _  the monster before you attacked it! It's not a hobgoblin but a rare Hemogoblin. It blows up for 50 points of damage. You're dead."

What I hated most was the faux-evolution rationale for such creatures. As if that made them OK. 

* Adventurers wear a lot of heavy metal armor. Introduce the Rust Monster.

* Thieves listen at doors. How dare they! Introduce the Ear Seeker.

* Mages covet magical books and store their most important class ability on paper. Introduce the Bookworm that only eats magical books.

* Beholders are terrifying creatures of vast power and evil intent. Any encounter with one, especially at lower levels, is sure to be a super-tough fight and result in at least a couple of dead party members. OMG! There's one now! Quick, drink your potion of Heroism. Cast Haste or Stoneskin. Use charges from that wand! Expend a couple of your once-a-day ability uses! Charge! Boom, haha! It's a Gas Spore. Now you're all going to sprout mushrooms out your ears. 

* The Nilbog. 'Nuff said. (Indeed, something like half the monsters from the original FF).

I'm sure people can think of others.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> A Gotcha! monster is a monster that exists solely because adventurers exist and do certain things for the sole purpose either damaging adventurers or screwing said adventurers out of hard-won resources and equipment (or as a faux-balance tool for a campaign that has 'gotten out of hand'. Given out too many magic items? Trot out the Disenchanter!). It's a heavy-handed and usually nonsensical creature. In the same vein as this are creatures that exist solely to stop, block or nullify a specific character class ability.
> 
> All they usually serve to do is make would-be bold adventurers into whining, cringing accountants who want to map corridors with protractors and laser sights.




*grins*

1e:  Where Equipment Loss Is Sometimes Arbitrary™.

It's not a game for whiners.


----------



## Henry

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> What I hated most was the faux-evolution rationale for such creatures. As if that made them OK.
> 
> * Adventurers wear a lot of heavy metal armor. Introduce the Rust Monster.
> 
> * Thieves listen at doors. How dare they! Introduce the Ear Seeker.
> 
> * Mages covet magical books and store their most important class ability on paper. Introduce the Bookworm that only eats magical books.




Verisimilitude -- it happens in real life all the time. People put guns loaded with blanks to their heads and pull the trigger; people stand over natural geysers thinking it would be "fun"; People launch themselves from Trebuchets expecting a net 50 feet away to catch them.

Lack of caution is what all of the above have in common - even the beholder/gas spore thing.

What about targeting an Iron Golem with a fireball? Wouldn't that fall under the same category? Or a monk fighting somebody with a Flame Shield on?


----------



## WizarDru

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> 1e:  Where Equipment Loss Is Sometimes Arbitrary™.
> 
> It's not a game for whiners.




No, it's a game for people who like to use 10' poles.  A lot.    

Mind you, let's not limit our choice of gotcha monsters to just equipment loss.  Let's not forget the 'a-chest?-you're-soaking-in-it' mimic, the 'how-did-evolution-produce-THIS?' trapper, the 'oh-they-must-have-evolved-from-this' lurkers above and the 'they-must-not-share-rooms-with-the-previous-monsters' piercer.


----------



## WayneLigon

Henry said:
			
		

> What about targeting an Iron Golem with a fireball? Wouldn't that fall under the same category? Or a monk fighting somebody with a Flame Shield on?




Not really, because those are abilities that are not narrowly and specifically designed to screw over one particular class or 'niche'. Iron Golems don't exist solely because mages like to use Fireball a lot; they have plenty of other uses (though it would have been better if, instead of listing the two most common attack spells in the game, it was done as it currently us, with any magical fire or electrical attack causing those effects). Ear Seekers, on the other hand, exist _solely and completely _ because thieves like to press their ears to dungeon doors while making use of their class ability.


----------



## DestroyYouAlot

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> * The Nilbog. 'Nuff said. (Indeed, something like half the monsters from the original FF).




Sirrah, I will fight to the death for the nilbog's right to seriously mess with adventuring parties!  Choose your weapon!

(Seriously, I can see where you're coming from.  But I do love FF monsters, the dumber the better - if for no other reason than you can throw it at the party once, have them all scratch their heads and go, "what the hell?", and then they never see it again.)


----------



## Henry

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Not really, because those are abilities that are not narrowly and specifically designed to screw over one particular class or 'niche'. Iron Golems don't exist solely because mages like to use Fireball a lot; they have plenty of other uses (though it would have been better if, instead of listing the two most common attack spells in the game, it was done as it currently us, with any magical fire or electrical attack causing those effects). Ear Seekers, on the other hand, exist _solely and completely _ because thieves like to press their ears to dungeon doors while making use of their class ability.




Mark me down as someone not seeing the difference; incautious behavior breeds bad results, no matter if from an ear seeker, or from a blast-happy wizard tossing flame on an Iron Golem. Same thing could be said about traps; they exist SOLELY to stop incautious intruders, as do ear seekers. In a world where Bioengineering existed before it was even a cool concept, things like ear seekers, otyughs, and rot grubs are going to be commonplace, as guards, traps, wards, and deterrents. I'm not saying a DM should use them every game, but one session with ear seekers is quite enough to have rogues thinking twice about laying bare ear to a door for the rest of a campaign. Similarly, one encounter with an Iron Golem will teach a player that fire (or magic, even!) is not the answer to everything.


----------



## Renfield

*On Wayne Ligons Post*

On Wayne Ligons Post and the topic of Gotcha Monsters.

First off, you are dealing with a settuings where wizards somehow find the materials and means to build and construct massive dungeons guarding treasures and so on. Settings where it is common for spellcasters to literally create creatures, Life, for their own ends. Worlds where a man can be hit with 10 arrows and still have 23 hitpoints left and no penalties to anything! Now imagine you're a wizard with loot to protect. Or perhaps a Dragon, or maybe you're just a powerful entity who is bored and creates a dungeon for the soul purpose of being entertained by silly adventurers. How are those monsters improbable given these situations? I know I'd like to ward thieves in any way possible so why not create or find some ear seekers, or my personal favorite, lock lurkers! Honestly?

And the reasons behind these creatures existing can be more than convincing. Considering the lovely ages old war talked about in the Sword of Truth series of books? You have an ancient war where both sides had powerful magic users who constantly created creatures and the like for the soul purpose of countering the other sides strengths. Incorporate that into D&D add a halfway competant DM and it's easy. I.E. Ancient war in a D&D world, one side is often creating magical items to arm their warriors with? Why not create a disenchanter or a rust monster to counter that? Add a few hundred or thousand years of history and these things are scattered throughout the world. Perhaps Rust Monsters live in iron rich hills or the secrets for creating Disenchanters to fend off those pesky adventurers? 

Maybe you should simply try looking at them in a different light, or your DM applied them in an annoying way because I've tossed these monsters at my players and certainly wasn't met with the frustrations you speak of. Rolled eyes and groans weren't given to me. Granted I did get that when I was fairly new to DMing and didn't apply them properly. Perhaps that is what you experienced and it soured you to it. Can't write off something that should be blamed on bad DMing application. 

"Gotcha" Monsters, a Wizard hermits way to make those pesky inquisitive adventurers think twice!


----------



## Lanefan

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> A Gotcha! monster is a monster that exists solely because adventurers exist and do certain things for the sole purpose either damaging adventurers or screwing said adventurers out of hard-won resources and equipment (or as a faux-balance tool for a campaign that has 'gotten out of hand'. Given out too many magic items? Trot out the Disenchanter!). It's a heavy-handed and usually nonsensical creature. In the same vein as this are creatures that exist solely to stop, block or nullify a specific character class ability.
> 
> All they usually serve to do is make would-be bold adventurers into whining, cringing accountants who want to map corridors with protractors and laser sights.
> 
> The old cursed magic items are another form of Gotcha monster. Nothing says 'fun adventuring' like finally winning through a tough adventure to find that the cool item you thought you were getting is acutally not only worthless but now you have to go on a special side adventure just so you can get rid of it.
> 
> [...]
> 
> * Adventurers wear a lot of heavy metal armor. Introduce the Rust Monster.
> 
> * Thieves listen at doors. How dare they! Introduce the Ear Seeker.
> 
> * Mages covet magical books and store their most important class ability on paper. Introduce the Bookworm that only eats magical books.
> 
> * Beholders are terrifying creatures of vast power and evil intent. Any encounter with one, especially at lower levels, is sure to be a super-tough fight and result in at least a couple of dead party members. OMG! There's one now! Quick, drink your potion of Heroism. Cast Haste or Stoneskin. Use charges from that wand! Expend a couple of your once-a-day ability uses! Charge! Boom, haha! It's a Gas Spore. Now you're all going to sprout mushrooms out your ears.



There are risks in earning the levels, rewards, etc.  There are risks in keeping them.  There are risks in using them.  Start reducing those risks, and the game becomes less challenging...and thus, less fun.

In other words, regarding what you say above; I fail to see a problem... 

Lanefan


----------



## Raven Crowking

Lanefan said:
			
		

> There are risks in earning the levels, rewards, etc.  There are risks in keeping them.  There are risks in using them.  Start reducing those risks, and the game becomes less challenging...and thus, less fun.





Exactly.


RC


----------



## MerricB

I dislike "gotcha" monsters. I love "curveball" monsters.

A "curveball" monster is one that you have to think to defeat, that forces you out of your set combat tactics. Golems are a prime example of these, but, in truth, D&D is full of them. 

"Gotcha" monsters that don't destroy you utterly, I don't mind. The Gas Spore is fine in my book, as long as you use it appropriately. What's appropriately? Not using it against 1st level PC comes to mind. Gas Spores are great against 10th+ level PCs. Why? They reduce their (renewable) resources without killing them. You need a _cure disease_ in 24 hours or you die? That's achievable.

Cursed items? Fine by me. Wish they were more prominent. (I do agree that using one as the "reward" for several sessions of play without other stuff is a horrible idea).

Where I dislike "gotcha" monsters is when they're used to destroy a party. As an example, the PCs are coming up against a arch-devil. In the encounter before the arch-devil, they meet a "rust snake" (a rust monster, but disguised). The fighter leaps forward, hits it with his sword. With no warning, the +3 blade they needed to take on the devil crumbles to dust.

Rust monsters are good against new players with no magic items - nothing too valuable will be lost, and the players need to learn that not everything can be destroyed with swords. (Skeletons fulfill a similar role, actually). They're also good against experienced players who know what they are - it's fun to see them react to what's happening. Not so good against high-level PCs that have no idea what they are.

As a counterpoint to that, it's not so bad to use them if _magic items are plentiful_. If you can replace your +3 sword quickly, it'll be fine.

Cheers!


----------



## BroccoliRage

dcas said:
			
		

> I've been driving my Corolla for 8+ years. It's far and away the more reliable of the two cars I've owned (the other was an ancient Ford Taurus). Yes, you can drive Japanese cars into the ground, but that's because they last long enough to be driven into the ground! I would not hesitate to buy another Toyota when the time comes.
> 
> I think by making this analogy you are providing fodder for those who might claim that 3e is an improvement over 1e/2e (just as the Corolla was an improvement on what American car mfrs were putting out at the time).




That's why I bought one.

I never said a Corrolla was crap, Hussar. That's your own inference. A Model T was disposable as well, and was not crap for it's time. A disposable car is a damn good thing, because you aren't out $60,000 when it gives up on you. It will last around 15 years without any major maintenance. That's great! I can then toss it away when I'm done, and buy another one new and own that within two years as well. What a great deal. An rpg system is not even in the same realm and does not make for a good comparison. 

A non-disposable car requires precision maintenance, offers a good deal more comfort, is built with specific themes in mind aside from zipping about. You don't toss your (in descending order) Lambourghini, Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar, Infiniti, Cadillac, Lincoln, and so forth away, they cost too damn much. A car that costs as much as them needs to be maintained. It is far more of an investment than a Corrola. If you paid less for one of these cars new than you did for a Corrolla, you were had. (By the way, I just named to foreign makes up there.)

 And a fad can last for years. D&D was pretty damn popular in the days of 1e, and then wasn't so popular. Fantasy themed stuff in general has seen an upswing since the release of the Lord of The Rings movies. It will fall off. Everything always does. 

Alaska is not the state to watch for business trends, by the way. Yes, I'm aware plenty of people live there, and I'm also aware that you're all very proud to be living there. Facts are facts.


----------



## RFisher

I've never really had a problem with cursed items. Heck, one of my favorite stories to tell is my PC that died from Exploding Runes.

But...as DM, I tend more towards the One Ring/Artifacts & Relics school. The PCs are more likely to find an item that has both beneficial & malevolent qualities.

Of course, the best is when you manage to make good use of a cursed item.


----------



## Renfield

Alaska may not be the state to watch for business trends but the internet evens that playing field quite a bit. I imagine if you were to take a peak at the numbers comming out of Wizards of the coast you won't find much pointing towards a declining trend. As for Alaska and business trends, well, it's a matter of perspective, you don't watch business trends up here the same way you do in the states though I will admit we are a tad removed. As for plenty of people, not sure where you got that idea, I wouldn't call 500,000 with the largest city sporting about 250,000 being plenty of people   Still, I spend a lot of time in Washington and Oregon and I imagine my gaming friends there would agree that RPG's and D&D in particular are most definitely not in decline, though I may just be wrong. Perhaps some of the people around here who know better can lend comment on that.


----------



## Raven Crowking

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> And a fad can last for years. D&D was pretty damn popular in the days of 1e, and then wasn't so popular. Fantasy themed stuff in general has seen an upswing since the release of the Lord of The Rings movies. It will fall off. Everything always does.





But even if 3.X never sells another book, that still doesn't say anything about its relative quality as a game.  Betamax isn't always the winner over VHS.  The Avro Arrow doesn't always go into production.  Sometimes people prefer McGames to greatness.

The point is, whether 1e or 3e sold more has nothing to do with their relative quality, _unless a direct relationship can be established_.  In the event of a market that isn't even head-to-head, this becomes even more meaningless.



			
				WayneLion said:
			
		

> A Gotcha! monster is a monster that exists solely because adventurers exist and do certain things for the sole purpose either damaging adventurers or screwing said adventurers out of hard-won resources and equipment (or as a faux-balance tool for a campaign that has 'gotten out of hand'. Given out too many magic items? Trot out the Disenchanter!). It's a heavy-handed and usually nonsensical creature. In the same vein as this are creatures that exist solely to stop, block or nullify a specific character class ability.
> 
> All they usually serve to do is make would-be bold adventurers into whining, cringing accountants who want to map corridors with protractors and laser sights.




Out of curiosity, in a meta-sense, don't ogres "exist and do certain things for the sole purpose of either damaging adventurers or screwing said adventurers our of hard-won resources and equipment"?  I mean, within the context of the game, ogres exist either to engage you in melee (damaging adventurers) or to attempt to extort a bribe or toll (screwing said adventurers our of hard-won resources and equipment).

The same could be said of bandits, thieves, tax collectors, local magistrates, innkeepers, dragons, and the BBEG at the end of the adventure.

Even if you make the claim that these characters and creatures are presented as having an existence outside the context of the adventure (and you should make such a claim!), the exact same claim can be made quite easily for the rust monster, which exists in underground places surviving off of metal veins and ores found in the very rock.  While a guy walking around in plate mail is a veritable feast to a rust monster, this doesn't mean that it is all the rust monster eats.  Compared to some of the strange creatures found around oceanic vents in the real world, the rust monster seems rather plausible.

In D&D worlds, magic is a source of energy, and all energy sources are potential food sources.  Is it really so strange to consider the possibility of a magiovoure?  The Expeditious Retreat book dealing with worldbuilding (forget the name off-hand, but it's on my EN World bookshelf) talks about the likelihood of just such beings, from the microscopic to the macroscopic.  These things are as "realistic" as dragons, ogres, and iron golems.

Is a creature with strong SR designed to "screw over one particular class or 'niche'"?  How about a creature with a high AC that is vulnerable to magic?  And why is screwing the party all one can do with rust monsters?  Why can't the DM use the presence of rust monsters as a means of determining where it is worthwhile to dig for ore (once the monsters are clubbed to death)?  Or use their presence as a clue to the whereabouts of the Lost Dwarven Mines of Marrowgate?  Surely the dwarves were aware of rust monsters, and would use approriate measures (including stone doors on hidden pivots) to keep them from the treasury!

For that matter, why can't encounters with rust monsters allow a party to use the monsters themselves as a resource against a pesky iron golem they know is coming up?  Why can't the party let loose rust monsters in the armoury of the hobgoblin warband?



			
				MerricB said:
			
		

> Where I dislike "gotcha" monsters is when they're used to destroy a party.




But, what part of that statement really requires the monster to be a "gotcha" monster?  And, from your example, one would almost assume that if the fighter leapt into battle with a giant, and the giant successfully used Sunder on his weapon, you'd be of the same mind.

Just because something is a setback, that does not make it unfair.  Nor does it make it unfun.  If the setback means that there is no way to win, and there is also no way to avoid trying to win (you must kill the devil or you/your loved one/your village dies) then that is perhaps a more an example of poor DMing than poor monster design.  

Of course, sometimes there is still a way to win (your choosing to give up without looking about you doesn't make the DM a bad DM), there may have been tons of clues about that "rust snake" that you simply didn't bother to look at (like all those piles of rust and the fact that the devil's minions all eschewed metal armour and weapons), etc.  

You shouldn't cry "Bad DM!" just because something didn't go your way.

(Consistent patterns of behavior are another animal; seek or start a new game!)


RC


----------



## BroccoliRage

I already said that sales and fashionability are not indicative of quality.


----------



## Raven Crowking

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> I already said that sales and fashionability are not indicative of quality.





Yes.  But it is a point that cannot be emphasized enough!


----------



## Maggan

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> And a fad can last for years. D&D was pretty damn popular in the days of 1e, and then wasn't so popular. Fantasy themed stuff in general has seen an upswing since the release of the Lord of The Rings movies. It will fall off. Everything always does.




Absolutely. But just because a product has gone through its product cycle, does not make it a fad.

D&D3e has been going for close to six years. Is that brief enough to make it a fad if it reaches its product cycle end next year?

To me, no. A six or seven year run of popularity is too long to reduce D&D3e to being a fad.

/M


----------



## Hussar

Henry said:
			
		

> Mark me down as someone not seeing the difference; incautious behavior breeds bad results, no matter if from an ear seeker, or from a blast-happy wizard tossing flame on an Iron Golem. Same thing could be said about traps; they exist SOLELY to stop incautious intruders, as do ear seekers. In a world where Bioengineering existed before it was even a cool concept, things like ear seekers, otyughs, and rot grubs are going to be commonplace, as guards, traps, wards, and deterrents. I'm not saying a DM should use them every game, but one session with ear seekers is quite enough to have rogues thinking twice about laying bare ear to a door for the rest of a campaign. Similarly, one encounter with an Iron Golem will teach a player that fire (or magic, even!) is not the answer to everything.






			
				RC said:
			
		

> Even if you make the claim that these characters and creatures are presented as having an existence outside the context of the adventure (and you should make such a claim!), the exact same claim can be made quite easily for the rust monster, which exists in underground places surviving off of metal veins and ores found in the very rock. While a guy walking around in plate mail is a veritable feast to a rust monster, this doesn't mean that it is all the rust monster eats. Compared to some of the strange creatures found around oceanic vents in the real world, the rust monster seems rather plausible.




I picked these two quotes because they are very similar in tone to me.

I'm sorry, but the ONLY reason a rust monster was created was to screw over players.  It was not drawn from any sort of genre novel or story.  It was not there to fill any sort of niche other than, "Neener neener!"  The same goes for ear seekers.  This wasn't done for any other reason than that.  

Ogres and giants are staples of fantasy.  Stories of them have existed for centuries.  We can use either creature in a variety of ways - standard BBEG, thug, mook, non-combat, comic relief (there's an ogre on the WOTC Vicious Venues section that acts as a rickshaw driver) and whatnot.

There is no such thing for rust monsters and ear seekers.  They server EXACTLY the same role as a trap.  You could write up a rust monster or an ear seeker as a trap and the encounter would fall out in an identical way to a combat encounter.  That's what I mean by a Gotcha creature.  Any creature whose SOLE role can be served by a trap qualifies as a Gotcha creature.  

As Merric rightly points out, creatures like a golem can be curveball creatures.  The require different tactics to defeat.  However, I cannot do a golem encounter with a trap.  Golems, while pretty much purely combat machines, do have enough versatility to warrant being creatures and not traps.  A golem could sunder, breathe its breath weapon, charge, full attack, grapple, or any number of other options.

It has nothing to do with whining players losing their loot.  It has to do with the idea that some creatures are better served as a trap.  There's a reason Green Slime isn't in the MM.  There's a reason that the piercer morphed into darkmantles.  It's a trend I wish they had kept up with and removed a number of other so called creatures as well.

As far as player entitlement goes, well, the poll you did RC was somewhat badly written that people voted for the choice they could understand rather than possibly the way they would have had they understood the question.  That I do remember coming out from that thread.  I also remember in the thread that spawned the poll that, other than one or two people, we had pretty much universally condemned the idea that railroading is what the player said it was.  In any case, that thread wasn't edition specific.

And finally, yes BroccolliRage, when you use the word disposable and "drive them into the ground and throw them away" I took that as a negative.  Considering that people who also responded to your post also took it that way, perhaps it is generally considered negative to say that a car is disposable - as in use for a very short time and throw into the garbage.  A Model T was most certainly not disposable in that it could be sold and resold a number of times throughout its life.  But, I think it was simply a misunderstanding.  Nuff said.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> Ogres and giants are staples of fantasy.  Stories of them have existed for centuries.  We can use either creature in a variety of ways - standard BBEG, thug, mook, non-combat, comic relief (there's an ogre on the WOTC Vicious Venues section that acts as a rickshaw driver) and whatnot.
> 
> There is no such thing for rust monsters and ear seekers.  They server EXACTLY the same role as a trap.  You could write up a rust monster or an ear seeker as a trap and the encounter would fall out in an identical way to a combat encounter.  That's what I mean by a Gotcha creature.  Any creature whose SOLE role can be served by a trap qualifies as a Gotcha creature.





I keep hearing people claim that D&D is its own genre.  Surely, if this is true, rust monsters are a staple of that genre.  After all, many D&D monsters are not as close to their folkloric and fantasy counterparts as they could be.  The mind flayer and beholder were created for D&D -- surely this cannot be a strike against a monster.

So, what are we left with?  The number of ways you can use the monster?

So, you cannot use rust monsters to indicate where veins of ore are?  You cannot use rust monsters as pets in conjunction with other monsters?  You cannot use them as living weapons against iron golems and your armoured foes?  You cannot make them pull a rickshaw?  You cannot use an awakened rust monster for comic relief?  For the BBEG?  For both at the same time?

Please.

The rust monster is as versatile a creature, surely, as any vermin or animal encounter in the book.  Because your imagination isn't up to the task, you should not conclude that the task is impossible (or even unlikely).  This isn't a failure of the rules, or the creature as written.  It is a failure of the DM.

BTW, while I would write up the ear seeker as a hazard in 3.X, hazards and traps don't tend to follow you around.  I would love to see your write up of the rust monster as a trap that is no different than the effects of the rust monster in the game.....and somehow makes the rust monster not seem like a living creature that has to be beaten to death.    

(Quick!  Roll on the Wandering Trap chart!)     


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> It has nothing to do with whining players losing their loot.  It has to do with the idea that some creatures are better served as a trap.




I think you need to re-read that article.  The rust monster is re-written as a monster that conveniently leaves you your equipment....more over, the rust damage "heals" because losing your equipment isn't fun.  



> As far as player entitlement goes, well, the poll you did RC was somewhat badly written that people voted for the choice they could understand rather than possibly the way they would have had they understood the question.  That I do remember coming out from that thread.  I also remember in the thread that spawned the poll that, other than one or two people, we had pretty much universally condemned the idea that railroading is what the player said it was.  In any case, that thread wasn't edition specific.




Again, even when it was explained exactly what was meant, people held by their opinion.  Once more, you should go back and look at the source material.


RC


----------



## Thurbane

I guess in the real world, a great white shark is a gotcha monster...

I mean, come on, it's favorite food item (seals) just happens to look almost exactly like a human splashing around on a surfboard when seen from below? No way that evolved naturally, some vicious Gygaxian deity obviously created the great white to screw over surfers!   

Or the funnel web spider! The only vertebrates with an extreme (sometimes fatal) reaction to it's toxin are primates (i.e. humans). Other mammals suffer little more than a nasty sting. No way that could have come about naturally, right?  

Or to use the Gas Spore ananlogy, several species of non-venemous snakes have evolved almost identical markings to extremely dangerous snakes as a defense mechanism...


----------



## Psion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I guess in the real world, a great white shark is a gotcha monster...
> 
> I mean, come on, it's favorite food item (seals) just happens to look almost exactly like a human splashing around on a surfboard when seen from below? No way that evolved naturally, some vicious Gygaxian deity obviously created the great white to screw over surfers!
> 
> Or the funnel web spider! The only vertebrates with an extreme (sometimes fatal) reaction to it's toxin are primates (i.e. humans). Other mammals suffer little more than a nasty sting. No way that could have come about naturally, right?
> 
> Or to use the Gas Spore ananlogy, several species of non-venemous snakes have evolved almost identical markings to extremely dangerous snakes as a defense mechanism...




Good post!


----------



## Maggan

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I guess in the real world, a great white shark is a gotcha monster...
> 
> I mean, come on, it's favorite food item (seals) just happens to look almost exactly like a human splashing around on a surfboard when seen from below? No way that evolved naturally, some vicious Gygaxian deity obviously created the great white to screw over surfers!
> 
> Or the funnel web spider! The only vertebrates with an extreme (sometimes fatal) reaction to it's toxin are primates (i.e. humans). Other mammals suffer little more than a nasty sting. No way that could have come about naturally, right?
> 
> Or to use the Gas Spore ananlogy, several species of non-venemous snakes have evolved almost identical markings to extremely dangerous snakes as a defense mechanism...




Hey, who said real life was supposed to be balanced?   

/M


----------



## Hussar

Just as a point, you cannot Awaken a rust monster.    (nitpick)

Yup, the remade rust monster leaves your equipment, but, it also can now beat the snot out of you as well, and then eat your equipment at its leisure.  People tend to conveniently forget that part.  Suddenly a stock monster has TWO things it can do instead of one.

Funnel web spider - trap.

Shark - summonable, awakenable, works great with templates (try the Hellfire Bloodshark from Scarred Lands), and is not only there to screw over players.

Gas Spore - works great as a trap.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> But please do not point to sales figures as evidence of greatness. McDonalds may sell more burgers than Licks, but I know which one tastes better.




Yes, but taste isn't everything for a hamburger. A hamburger is many things, any item is -- it's taste, it's texture, it's cost, it's time, it's availability, it's advertising, it's a complex amalgam of factors, of which taste is only one (though arguably an important one).

McDonalds sells more than Licks because McDondalds takes into account EVERYTHING about the hamburger (including, notably, cost, time, availability, and advertising), and thus makes a hamburger that is better suited to the majority of people because of the qualities it has. It sacrifices taste, sure, but people obviously don't care about taste or it wouldn't be successful. A better burger isn't just about taste -- apparently, people are willing to eat cardboard at 59 cents when they can demand it in about 30 seconds. A good hamburger will take that into account, as McDonald's does.

That's kind of the point I'm making. 3e provides a baseline because the majority of people want a baseline and it's very useful to have one. It may not cater well to an inventive or out-of-the-box DM, but people obviously don't care about inventive or out-of-the-box DMs or it wouldn't be successful. A game isn't just about the ability of a DM authority or thinking outside of a box, it's also about balance, consistency, and speed of play. A good game will take that into account, as 3e does (and as other editions only did to varying and limited degrees).

Now, there's obviously a sustainable market for good, quality hamburgers, enough to sustain quite a diversity of places dedicated to providing delicious hamburgers. These cost more, take longer, and are, effectively, "luxury" items. Thankfully, they are affordable enough and common enough and in demand enough that there is a market to support them.

Is there enough of a demand for what older editions offer that 3e lacks (which I still can't really identify) to sustain a market? If there isn't, it is almost literally a waste of time and money to consider bringing that back. If there is, than other parties will meet that need and there's no need for 3e (or McDonald's) to offer you a game more like an earlier edition (or a better tasting hamburger). 

In effect, criticizing McD's for bad hambugers is pointless complaining and griping about 3e for "too many options" (for instance) is similarly whining -- McD's is interested in the more-profitable venues of convienience and cost, they never claimed to win taste tests with French chefs. 3e is interested in tools and customization, they never claimed that a limited suite of selectable classes (for instance) was something they'd ever be interested in. 

Now, the REAL issues to gripe about 3e are numerous enough, I don't know why people would invent issues such as "videogamey" or "too easy on the players"  (pretty much entirely false and/or subjective criticisms) based entirely on snap judgements of limited evidence just to have something new to whine about. 

We know what 3e offers in the way of a balanced, codified, easily-tweakable ruleset and a baseline that allows for said balance (and controlled deviations from it). What did earlier editions offer that was special to them, that has been lost?

And I want *real* offers that can be backed up by *real* differences, none of this vague griping about how it feels. Tell me, with specifics, what 2e and 1e and OD&D did that 3e does not and cannot do, and why it was *good* that they did that and why it is *bad* that 3e doesn't.

In other words, don't tell me what 3e does wrong, tell me what the other editions did *right*, and tell me specifically, in ways that are in the rules themselves, not in your own experience or just from your DM style.


----------



## JRRNeiklot

Nope.  Taste is everything.  Unless it gives me enough gas that I have a heart attack or something, nothing else matters.

"Ooh, this tastes like crap, but it's GOOD for you...."


----------



## Raven Crowking

KM, if you are claiming that McDonalds hamburgers are the best, then I have to say that my expectations are a bit higher than yours.  As a result, I will have to disagree.

If you are claiming that D&D 3.X is the McDonalds of rpgs, then I have to say that I like the system a bit more than that.  As a result, I will have to disagree.


----------



## Thurbane

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> KM, if you are claiming that McDonalds hamburgers are the best, then I have to say that my expectations are a bit higher than yours.  As a result, I will have to disagree.
> 
> If you are claiming that D&D 3.X is the McDonalds of rpgs, then I have to say that I like the system a bit more than that.  As a result, I will have to disagree.



Well said.   

The simple fact of the matter is, there is no scientific formula that will show one RPG system to be "better" than another, unless your definition of "better" is "better selling".

Sorry to keep trotting this example out, but are the Pussycat Dolls "better" than Tool because their singles sell more copies?


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Sorry to keep trotting this example out, but are the Pussycat Dolls "better" than Tool because their singles sell more copies?




Seeing that this thread has finally drifted into a discussion of truly important matters, I'm compelled to contribute, again.

I prefer just about any hamburger to McDonalds hamburgers.
Tool over Pussycat Dolls.
C&C or B/X over 3E.
Single Malt Scotch over blended scotch.
Microbrews or imports (German, Belgian) over Miller or Budweiser.
Sushi over Chicken-of-the-Sea. 
La Gloria Cubana over Garcia Y Vega.

Oh, and King Crimson blows me away.  I can't get enough of them, lately.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> So because the wind seems to be blowing in that direction, and it happens to be that time of year, I'm creating a thread to help contain the random sniping littering other threads. Specifically, I'm interested in figuring out about the "soul of the game." What is specifically D&D? What is the core appeal of the game? The thing that people have fun doing, the cause of it's existence and it's reason for being and your reason for playing are.....what?
> 
> And how does the most recent edition/trends/design of the game violate that? How does what D&D is becoming/has become/became before pervert what you think this spirit and soul of D&D is?
> 
> And, here's the clincher: *why is that a bad thing*? Obviously, many people feel that D&D's trends now are beating and deflowering their precious game, but what would you rather have WotC publish? What new things would satisfy what you need?
> 
> My own opine will become evident shortly, I'm sure, but I'm more interested in why others feel that the recent edition/recent trends/modern design choices are spitting in the face of what D&D is to them. I wanna hear your gripes, so gripe them!
> 
> I also wanna hear people disagreeing with these gripes, so defend the recent path/design choices/modern trends! Tell me why D&D is either still being true to it's origins, or why spitting in the face of what D&D has been is a good thing for the game.
> 
> Is D&D still being true to what it once was? If it's not, is that bad?





This, by the way, seems a lot more interested in the "soul" of the game than in the "sales" of the game.  Unless you believe soul and sales to be the same thing?  To me, the soul isn't in the mechanics, but rather in how those mechanics are used (and, as a result, in what those mechanics encourage/reward).




> n effect, criticizing McD's for bad hambugers is pointless complaining and griping about 3e for "too many options" (for instance) is similarly whining -- McD's is interested in the more-profitable venues of convienience and cost, they never claimed to win taste tests with French chefs. 3e is interested in tools and customization, they never claimed that a limited suite of selectable classes (for instance) was something they'd ever be interested in.
> 
> Now, the REAL issues to gripe about 3e are numerous enough, I don't know why people would invent issues such as "videogamey" or "too easy on the players" (pretty much entirely false and/or subjective criticisms) based entirely on snap judgements of limited evidence just to have something new to whine about.
> 
> We know what 3e offers in the way of a balanced, codified, easily-tweakable ruleset and a baseline that allows for said balance (and controlled deviations from it). What did earlier editions offer that was special to them, that has been lost?
> 
> And I want *real* offers that can be backed up by *real* differences, none of this vague griping about how it feels. Tell me, with specifics, what 2e and 1e and OD&D did that 3e does not and cannot do, and why it was *good* that they did that and why it is *bad* that 3e doesn't.





So, I guess that answers your question, at least in part.

3e, if one is to accept your statements at face value, isn't interested in "flavour", whereas flavour was the primary concern (IMHO & IME) of earlier editions.  You simply cannot have any kind of meaningful discussion of the "soul" of D&D (or, I expect, anything else) without getting into abstractions.


RC


(Side Note:  Hussar, _you_ may not be able to Awaken a rust monster, but _I_ can.  When I run a game, I am the DM.  Just a nitpick right back atcha!    )


EDIT:  It occurs to me that this might have something to do with the soul of D&D, then and now.  I don't think it would have occured to anyone in previous editions to tell another DM that he _*can't*_ make a rust monster intelligent & self-aware.  Or that he couldn't use a rust monster for comedic relief.  The rust monster worked perfectly well for all sorts of encounters before....now it is just a trap?  A trap on legs?  That's all you're allowed to do with it?

For an edition that embraces _options_, it certainly has a following that embraces _limits_.


RC


----------



## Odhanan

> 3e, if one is to accept your statements at face value, isn't interested in "flavour", whereas flavour was the primary concern (IMHO & IME) of earlier editions.



Well, all that MacDonald comparison aside, do you truly believe that RC? 

I certainly don't think 3E is not interested in flavor. And when you say flavor was the primary concern of earlier editions, how did you come to this conclusion, in your experience? 

I'm not saying it's wrong, but honestly, I'd say that the focus of AD&D, for instance, was on the actual adventure and less the world that surrounded it, as opposed to AD&D2, which was more focussed on worlds and less on dungeon crawling, and 3E which is sort of an attempt in a blend of the two. Off the top of my head, without thinking too much about it.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Odhanan said:
			
		

> Well, all that MacDonald comparison aside, do you truly believe that RC?
> 
> I certainly don't think 3E is not interested in flavor. And when you say flavor was the primary concern of earlier editions, how did you come to this conclusion, in your experience?
> 
> I'm not saying it's wrong, but honestly, I'd say that the focus of AD&D, for instance, was on the actual adventure and less the world that surrounded it, as opposed to AD&D2, which was more focussed on worlds and less on dungeon crawling, and 3E which is sort of an attempt in a blend of the two. Off the top of my head, without thinking too much about it.





I was making an attempt to highlight the problem with the McGame School of Edition Comparison more than anything.  

However, since you asked, I believe that the _ruleset_ is excellent (though, for my purposes, still requires tweaking) but that the _books themselves_ are not nearly as flavourful as those of earlier editions.  It is good for a ruleset to offer the means to include many, many options, but the philosophy behind the ruleset should (IMHO, of course, YMMV) offer meaningful advice about limiting those options to create a cohesive milieu.  Even if that milieu is going to be used for just one campaign.  Limitations should exist because of campaign consistency, not because the rules don't contain a provision for Awakening a rust monster.

1e had a lot of material for world-building, and the conceptual importance of world-building was well supported in Dragon.  When 2e came out, they promoted this aspect -- seemingly they thought it was the "soul of D&D".  However, 2e went too far in that direction, creating modules in which it seemed that the PCs were an afterthought.  Blech!    

I am somewhat saddened by the diminishing role of the DM, not in terms of the rules so much as in terms of the setting.  For example, the DM is either allowed to limit classes and races without being a "bad DM" or he is not.  

Then again, I readily acknowledge that what I think is important for flavour is the antithesis of what is important for sales.  I am more than willing to tweak a system into exactly what I want.  And, in my case, that includes reproducing some of the player advice from 1e.

RC


----------



## Thurbane

...


----------



## Thurbane

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> You simply cannot have any kind of meaningful discussion of the "soul" of D&D (or, I expect, anything else) without getting into abstractions.



That's the point I've been trying to get accross - summed up very well.


> For an edition that embraces _options_, it certainly has a following that embraces _limits_.



Also very true. This may or may not be a direct result of the ruleset, but it is certainly a sentiment I see time and again both here and (even moreso) at the WotC forums. Now, I'm sure people will howl me down and say that the Interweb isn't a good indicator, but I still say that there can't be THAT much smoke without SOME fire...


----------



## I'm A Banana

> You simply cannot have any kind of meaningful discussion of the "soul" of D&D (or, I expect, anything else) without getting into abstractions.




So when people are saying that 3e has lost the "soul of D&D" that's really just another way to say "3e sucks more" and putting window dressing on it?

Did I give people on the internet too much credit for intellectual honesty again?


----------



## Thurbane

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> So when people are saying that 3e has lost the "soul of D&D" that's really just another way to say "3e sucks more" and putting window dressing on it?
> 
> Did I give people on the internet too much credit for intellectual honesty again?



Not at all, I don't know where you'd draw that conclusion from.

If someone said to me "3E has lost the soul of D&D", I would assume that, *to that person*, some essential part of what defines D&D for them has been lost along the way...not necessarily as "OMFG 3E suxx0rz!"...


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> So when people are saying that 3e has lost the "soul of D&D" that's really just another way to say "3e sucks more" and putting window dressing on it?
> 
> Did I give people on the internet too much credit for intellectual honesty again?





Look to your own self, before you cast stones!    

After all, it was not me who asked how people felt about something abstract, and then demanded something concrete as a response when the answers he got weren't to his liking.

By Dagon's Briny Beard!  If you had read the responses to this thread, you would know that I am _not_ saying "3e sucks more".  What I am saying is that the _ruleset_ is great, but the _attitude_ sucks more....I have also said that this shift in attitude might not be the fault of the rules (but that the books could do more to combat it).

On one hand, we have a beautiful toolkit to create far more detailed and precise campaign settings than ever before.  We have a toolkit that, we are told, can make a poor DM adequate and an adequate DM a little better than adequate (which is, if true, an improvement, right?)  OTOH, we've stripped out nearly all of the language that allows the DM to use that toolkit to its best effect.

Then we've got the Interweb -- again, a fantastic tool.  The Creature Forums alone on EN World are worth their weight in platinum.  Yet, we've got people saying things like (and I am paraphrasing here, not intended to be the specific position of any one person) "The DM can say No when the players tell him he can," "You can't Awaken a rust monster (because it's not in the rules)", and "If you don't let the players pick what classes are available, you're a bad DM".  

Really, I think my position was summed up pretty well in Post 159 (http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3102928&postcount=159).  

To me, the "soul of D&D" (as it were) is this: "You and your friends enter and explore a strange and unique location, where you encounter dangers and seek rewards." Also, "The DM roots for the players, but doesn't change the situation to ensure their survival."

RC


----------



## I'm A Banana

> If someone said to me "3E has lost the soul of D&D", I would assume that, to that person, some essential part of what defines D&D for them has been lost along the way...not necessarily as "OMFG 3E suxx0rz!"...




I'd agree, which is why I started the thread to try to find out what was meant by various people by "the soul of D&D." To which I only really got answers that either 3e still satisfies (such as RC's) or vague opinions about player/DM culture and a general hatred of the default guidelines (which aren't realy an issue with any one edition or the other). Which leaves me concluding that saying "the soul of D&D has been lost" = "3e is not 1e/2e/OD&D and this is bad." Which, I do believe, someone posted waaaay back in the thread. 



> Then we've got the Interweb -- again, a fantastic tool. The Creature Forums alone on EN World are worth their weight in platinum. Yet, we've got people saying things like (and I am paraphrasing here, not intended to be the specific position of any one person) "The DM can say No when the players tell him he can," "You can't Awaken a rust monster (because it's not in the rules)", and "If you don't let the players pick what classes are available, you're a bad DM".




This stuff doesn't seem to be related to any edition, as it existed in preponderance in earlier editions to boot, and still has the same exact answer it did back then.

RC, you don't seem to be saying that 3e has lost D&D's essential soul at all, just that you don't like the "attitude of kids these days."  That's really a whole seperate pile of old-man-ism. 

I've been trying to understand why 3e is illigitiate D&D in some people's eyes, and it seems to boil down to those people deeming anything not earlier D&D "illigitimate," because it's different and new, rather than for any real fundamental difference in the game. I had hoped there was more to it than that, but if there's nothing in the rules that suggests something different, if there's nothing that the old books actually told you to do that is better than what 3e tells you to do, I may have to chalk it up to reactionary dislike. I don't WANT to, but I don't seem to be given many valid alternatives to why someone would ever say "3e has lost the soul of D&D."


----------



## Thurbane

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I've been trying to understand why 3e is illigitiate D&D in some people's eyes, and it seems to boil down to those people deeming anything not earlier D&D "illigitimate," because it's different and new, rather than for any real fundamental difference in the game. I had hoped there was more to it than that, but if there's nothing in the rules that suggests something different, if there's nothing that the old books actually told you to do that is better than what 3e tells you to do, I may have to chalk it up to reactionary dislike. I don't WANT to, but I don't seem to be given many valid alternatives to why someone would ever say "3e has lost the soul of D&D."



OK dude, now I'm almost convinced you are just trolling. You've got over 13 pages of responses of what people do and don't like about the various editions of D&D, and you discount it all as just being personal opinion - when that's all it CAN be.

I seriously have no idea what kind of answer you are looking for.

Oh wait, yes I do..

"Golly gee, looks like I wuz wrong about good ole 3E after all. It's just the bee's knees, and it's soooo much better than those crusty old AD&D versions. You're so wise Kamikaze!"


----------



## I'm A Banana

> You've got over 13 pages of responses of what people do and don't like about the various editions of D&D, and you discount it all as just being personal opinion - when that's all it CAN be.




I wasn't trying to just get responses about what people don't like (though I knew that would accompany it). I was trying to understand one specific issue people seemed to have with it -- that illigitimate "not D&D-ness" of 3e.

I mean, most posters have generally agreed that the soul of D&D really still is/can be/should be in 3e, most posts defining the "soul of D&D" are broad enough to really include 3e. 

I wanted to find out what people meant by this, and if it had any real weight behind it or if it was just opinionated gripipng (which is fine). Those who post that 3e does is not legitimate D&D, that it has lost the soul, have no evidence that this is any more than subjective reaction. 

There's a difference, you see, between "I don't like 3e" and "3e is not really good D&D." I knew they'd both be coming along for the ride, but I wanted to see where "3e is not really good D&D" was coming from. Part of this was trying to see what would make 3e good D&D in their minds. From whatever evidence I can gather, those that believe this can't tell me WHY, according to the books, they come to this conclusion.

I mean, opinions may be varied, but they're rarely unfounded. "3e has lost the soul of D&D" doesn't seem to be motivated by what 3e is or what the soul of D&D is, but rather the fact that there *is* a 3e at all and that it changes things so much. 

If I'm trolling, I'm doing a bloody awful job of it.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I mean, opinions may be varied, but they're rarely unfounded. "3e has lost the soul of D&D" doesn't seem to be motivated by what 3e is or what the soul of D&D is, but rather the fact that there *is* a 3e at all and that it changes things so much.





Again, I think I am pretty specific.  The "soul of D&D" has the capacity to exist in this edition as much as it did in any other.  However, because of changes in the guidance structure, you are actually bucking the trend when you play the new game the way that you played the old game.  

Trying to get more specific actually makes it harder to convey what is meant, unless you are talking to someone who has had similar experiences.

When I started playing D&D with the Blue Box, and then AD&D 1e, the soul was there because TSR _put_ the soul there.  Both then and now, the soul is there (in my games at least) because _I_ put the soul there, and _my players_ put it there.  But now, unlike then, I don't get that same sense of "soul" from the rulebooks.  I _do_ get that sense from a lot of third-party books, like Arcana Evolved, Necromancer Games stuff, Bastion Press stuff, and Green Ronin stuff.  

I wouldn't call 3e illegitimate.  Like I said, I quite enjoy the very tweakable ruleset.  OTOH, going through this and similar threads, I understand exactly what people are saying about the problems they see with 3.X.  

That rust monster thing is a good example of the mindset problems that can occur.  I've followed lots of Hussar's posts, and I know that he's a good DM.  I feel fairly certain that if he came up with a good idea that required an Awakened rust monster, he could and would use or change the rules to make it work.  I feel certain that he could run a rust monster encounter for comedic potential.  Yet, conversely, he points out that a rust monster _can't_ be Awakened (letter of the rules trumps creativity) and claims that a rust monster is essentially a trap (mechanics of the rules trump creativity).  

These are potent memes.  And while, consciously, one might reject them, it seems fairly clear that subconsciously at least, they are widespread.  


RC


EDIT:  KM, if you are looking for something more concrete, pre-3e D&D was very concrete in its idea that the individual game was more important than the ruleset.  Repeatedly, both player & DM were told that all of the rules were options, and that the DM had the right to veto anything.  The ruleset existed to provide options and ideas, not to dictate how anything within the game must be done.

3.0 gave the idea of "Rule 0" a much lighter touch.  3.5 degraded it even further.

That isn't just old-man-ism; that is a fundamental difference in how the game is presented.  1e in particular was a tool to enable you to realize your own fantasy world.  3e is a tool to enable you to devise characters.  In 1e, a character was very much defined by what he had done in various adventures.  In 3e, a character is very much defined by his "build" over 1-20 levels, and which can be determined at each of those levels without actually playing the game at all.


----------



## Hairfoot

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> The "soul of D&D" has the capacity to exist in this edition as much as it did in any other.



That's my feeling, too.  I think any sensation of "soullesssness" comes about because so many themes of D&D have been extrapolated, bastardised, mass-marketed, or simply overused since D&D began.

25 years ago it was easy to conjure up adventures and character templates which seemed novel.  Now it's hard to create anything without someone commenting (correctly) that it's just like something from movie/book/comic/MMORPG/anime series X.

Today we're deluged with fantasy narratives and concepts, unlike a couple of decades ago, when any complex fantasy idea was new to its small audience of RPGers.  Gaming "magic" is largely a sense of exploring the unknow.  But the larger audiences grow for sci-fi/fantasy, the less chance a non-full-time creator (i.e. a DM) can conjure something unexpected.

That, and the sensible expectation of game designers that new DMs don't want to feel like they have to be talented story-tellers and world-designers to run a game, which means a more rules-based D&D.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I've been trying to understand why 3e is illigitiate D&D in some people's eyes, and it seems to boil down to those people deeming anything not earlier D&D "illigitimate," because it's different and new, rather than for any real fundamental difference in the game. I had hoped there was more to it than that, but if there's nothing in the rules that suggests something different, if there's nothing that the old books actually told you to do that is better than what 3e tells you to do, I may have to chalk it up to reactionary dislike. I don't WANT to, but I don't seem to be given many valid alternatives to why someone would ever say "3e has lost the soul of D&D."




Here's my answer.

You go to a restaurant, you see Steak Diane on the menu, you order it, and they serve you a vegetarian substitute made from soya protein.

You complain, and the waiter points out that their Soya Steak is much better than Steak Diane.  It has half the fat, it cuts your cholestrol, it comes with crunchy vegetables and tastes better, it's cheaper, in fact, it's better in every way than the Steak Diane you ordered.  His Soya Steak is an improvement.  Shut up and stop whining.

My answer is, once you take certain things out, what you're serving _is not and never will be steak._

In the same way, d20 fantasy is not and never will be D&D.

For me, the acid test is:  which of its roots does d20 fantasy most resemble?  Is it closest to D&D?  Of course not.  It's closest to RM2 from ~1990.

Consider:  Skill system ->  RM2, converted to work with a d20 instead of a d%.  Classes ->  all use the same xp table, carefully balanced against one another, can switch from one to the other -> RM2 with options from RMC1.  Ability scores increase as you gain a level -> RM2.  Races ->  No level limits, can use almost any creature in the game rather than a fixed range of options ->  RM2.  Experience point system, balanced between different kinds of action rather than focused around treasure ->  RM2.  Multiplicity of classes with 30+ options -> RM2.  Resists instead of saving throws -> RM2.

D20 fantasy does contain d20 conversions of proper D&D creatures (although, as evidenced in this thread, most proper AD&D creatures are considered "gotcha" monsters which it's unfair for the DM to use -- I have the impression that many of the posters here think it's unreasonable for a DM to kill them when they take the Rambo approach to dungeoneering.)  I feel this has a lot to do with preservation of trademarks rather than any inherent love of Umber Hulks or Rust Monsters or Carrion Crawlers, though.

D20 fantasy also does contain the D&D Vancian magic system, although many posters seem to dislike it, and it lacks the multiplicity of tables from RM2 -- but it does keep the inherent lethality of the RM2 combat tables, and there's an expectation that most PC deaths will be from combat, which is RM2.

When I see something called "D&D" I expect it to be D&D.  I don't want a half-fat, reduced-cholestrol vegetarian alternative no matter how much better it is.


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> EDIT:  KM, if you are looking for something more concrete, pre-3e D&D was very concrete in its idea that the individual game was more important than the ruleset.  Repeatedly, both player & DM were told that all of the rules were options, and that the DM had the right to veto anything.  The ruleset existed to provide options and ideas, not to dictate how anything within the game must be done.



You're gonna get argument on that one because of Gary's statements about the universal and essential nature of the OAD&D rules in _Dragon_ and elsewhere (including the prefaces to some of the 1E rulebooks).  At one point, OAD&D was intended to be a universally accepted and applied rules set (i.e. if you're playing AD&D, you play exactly by-the-book or it isn't AD&D).  However, I think you're correct when considering OD&D, Holmes, B/X, and BECMI.  And I think that, despite Gary's intention, that freewheeling spirit carried over into the way people played OAD&D, too.

I agree with Papers & Paychecks that 3E is a very different beast from earlier editions -- it feels like a different game to me.  That's not necessarily a bad thing -- 3E is a fine system -- but it's not the same.  There are obvious rule differences (e.g. feats, skill system, universal XP progression, etc), but there's also a different focus or mindset, IMO.  I find that 3E emphasizes the rules and rules mastery in a way that previous versions did not.  I think that previous versions (especially my favorites, B/X or BECMI) offer a great deal more freedom, especially to the DM.  3E provides a detailed, consistent system, and that's fine, but the same rules and consistency that help "make a poor DM into an adequate one" also take away some of the freedom and creativity and judgment that I enjoy employing as a DM.  Is my game in danger of being ruined by inconsistency and loose-cannon rulings?  Not so far.  I've been a DM a long time; I know what I'm doing, and I don't need a whole slew of detailed rules to "hold my hand."  

I don't think 3E sucks.  I've had some good games with 3E.  But I think it plays very different from earlier editions, and I think it has a rules-oriented approach and emphasis that isn't my cup of tea, at this point.  IMO, the whole discussion boils down to "different strokes, man."


----------



## Hussar

> EDIT: It occurs to me that this might have something to do with the soul of D&D, then and now. I don't think it would have occured to anyone in previous editions to tell another DM that he can't make a rust monster intelligent & self-aware. Or that he couldn't use a rust monster for comedic relief. The rust monster worked perfectly well for all sorts of encounters before....now it is just a trap? A trap on legs? That's all you're allowed to do with it?




Again, this is a case of experience.  I had a player in 2e look me straight in the eye and tell me that I couldn't use a manticore in a particular adventure because it was in the wrong terrain.  Quoting rules at the DM has existed since day one and is no more prevalent now than it was then.  About the biggest difference now, that I see is that DM's who cannot be bothered to learn the rules in the first place suddenly get called out a lot more than they used to.  DM's Fiat is no longer seen as a good thing, if it ever was.

Just to continue with the rust monster bit for a second.  The vast majority of encounters, very close to all encounters with a rust monster will go one of two ways:  either the rust monster gets the drop on the party and rusts someone's weapon before the armored guys shove the wizard out in front to club the rust monster to death or; the party spots the rust monster, and shoves the wizard out in front to club it to death.

BR has it entirely wrong.  It's not that many monsters are Gotcha monsters.  Gotcha monsters aren't simply me whining.  They are a small number of creatures that fit the following criteria: 
They exist specifically to affect one group of players - rust monsters screw fighters, ear seekers screw thieves.
They have abilities which are permanent or are very, very difficult to reverse
Almost every encounter with said creature will result in almost the same events every time.

Now, creatures that don't fit those three aren't really Gotcha creatures.  A medusa doesn't since a medusa can be used in so many different ways and aren't there specifically to screw over anyone in particular.  I am completely at a loss to understand why people feel the need to defend these creatures.  Why bother wasting the space in the Monster Manual when you could sort them out in a paragraph?

By the way, what is RM2?


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

RM2 = Rolemaster circa 1991, usually interpreted as the core 1e RM books plus the first three to five companions.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> BR has it entirely wrong.  It's not that many monsters are Gotcha monsters.  Gotcha monsters aren't simply me whining.  They are a small number of creatures that fit the following criteria:
> They exist specifically to affect one group of players - rust monsters screw fighters, ear seekers screw thieves.
> They have abilities which are permanent or are very, very difficult to reverse
> Almost every encounter with said creature will result in almost the same events every time.
> 
> Now, creatures that don't fit those three aren't really Gotcha creatures.





I guess that explains why green slime, rot grumbs (ToH), and ear seekers (ToH) were described in terms of hazards, whereas rust monsters were not.  I don't believe that they qualify, and obviously neither did the designers when they penned the MM.


RC


----------



## Lanefan

Hussar said:
			
		

> Just to continue with the rust monster bit for a second.  The vast majority of encounters, very close to all encounters with a rust monster will go one of two ways:  either the rust monster gets the drop on the party and rusts someone's weapon before the armored guys shove the wizard out in front to club the rust monster to death or; the party spots the rust monster, and shoves the wizard out in front to club it to death.



Assuming the party even knows what a rust monster* is.  That said, you say you think of the rust monster as a trap rather than a monster, as if a trap is a Bad Thing.  Is it?

* - Never mind its more insidious cousin the rustlater monster, where the rust effect occurs 1d4 hours after the metal contacts the creature... 



> By the way, what is RM2?



I was wondering the same thing.  RoleMaster was all I could think of, but I didn't know there was more than one version of it.

Lanefan


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> RM2 = Rolemaster circa 1991, usually interpreted as the core 1e RM books plus the first three to five companions.



I always thought that 3E bears striking similarities to RM, too.  At least one of the designers (i.e. Monte Cook) used to write for RoleMaster, so I didn't find it terribly odd.


----------



## Thurbane

I have a fundamental problem with the philosophy that it is "unfair" to inflict any form of lasting damage on a character. Characters need to feel that there is a genuine risk when adventuring, otherwise what is the point? You might as well be earning your GP through Craft and Perform checks.

Short of a TPK, the ease of Raise dead spells, and the fact that the only penalty you take for dying is the loss of a level - which you can earn back as normal (at an accelerated rate, as you are now 1 level behind the others, which the CR system will reward you for).

Characters see a Rust Monster - suddenly the fighter thinks that his Keen Vorpal Ghost Touch Flaming double sword might be destroyed. i.e. he feels a sense of *risk*. Not to mention the fact that I think the system has been set up to make characters waaay to reliant on their equipment in 3.X.

What my ramblings are getting at is the mindset that thinks that inflicting a TPK is fine (within the hallowed halls of CR, of course), as it within the "spririt of the rules", but taking someone's shiny magic armor and weapon is grossly unfair, and has rendered that character now unlayable.

Call me an old stick in the mud, but "back in the day" when you knew that dying meant, at the very least, the loss of 1 point of Constitution, and that level drains from undead could well be permanent if you didn't have a high level Cleric handy, bred a real sense of risk and adventure.


----------



## MerricB

Philotomy Jurament said:
			
		

> I always thought that 3E bears striking similarities to RM, too.  At least one of the designers (i.e. Monte Cook) used to write for RoleMaster, so I didn't find it terribly odd.




Mind you, I find 3E to have striking similarity to other games - it's all a matter of what you're familiar with. I mean, die + modifiers for skills sounds remarkably similar to _Teenagers from Outer Space_ to me. 




			
				Thurbane said:
			
		

> Call me an old stick in the mud, but "back in the day" when you knew that dying meant, at the very least, the loss of 1 point of Constitution, and that level drains from undead could well be permanent if you didn't have a high level Cleric handy, bred a real sense of risk and adventure.




You're an old stick in the mud. 

I'm not fond of unavoidable encounters, but that is more a feature of bad DMing. "Gotcha" monsters don't bother me when used appropriately. (I do think Ear Seekers are pretty stupid, though - Rot Grubs are fun, Ear Seekers just irritate me. There's a bit of equipment in the Complete Thief of 2e that is a mesh-covered ear trumpet. At that point, Ear Seekers lost their relevance). 

The "ease" of getting past level loss and death in 3e is partly a reflection of the change in adventures that are enjoyed by the players; the constantly restocking mega-dungeon is no longer the adventuring environment of choice. Campaign arcs have become much more important. (See the popularity of the Adventure Paths in _Dungeon magazine_).

There is also the rise in importance of character history and story. Where in the mega-dungeon, the PC's only interest lay in their abilities and how they could overcome the next challenge, when you have a lot of _role-playing_ invested in a particular PC, with allies, enemies, story threads and suchlike, then the permanent loss of a character means a lot of work wasted on the part of the DM and player.

Cheers!


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

MerricB said:
			
		

> Mind you, I find 3E to have striking similarity to other games - it's all a matter of what you're familiar with. I mean, die + modifiers for skills sounds remarkably similar to _Teenagers from Outer Space_ to me.



Sure.  For example, to someone who plays Bridge and Poker (and that's about it), I suppose D&D and Panty Explosion are probably strikingly similar.  However, I think it's understood that we're talking about something a bit narrower and more specific (i.e. fantasy RPGs and how they approach the specific mechanics, skill aquisition, etc) -- not something as broad and general as "die roll + modifiers."


----------



## Ranes

MerricB said:
			
		

> ...when you have a lot of _role-playing_ invested in a particular PC, with allies, enemies, story threads and suchlike, then the permanent loss of a character means a lot of work wasted on the part of the DM and player.




Honestly, I don't think it's _necessarily_ a waste. Let's not be too precious about our mortal PCs.


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> There is also the rise in importance of character history and story. Where in the mega-dungeon, the PC's only interest lay in their abilities and how they could overcome the next challenge, when you have a lot of _role-playing_ invested in a particular PC, with allies, enemies, story threads and suchlike, then the permanent loss of a character means a lot of work wasted on the part of the DM and player.



While I totally agree that 3.X shifts the focus further from pure dungeoneering than 1E (and to a lesser degree, also 2E), I would also say that the emphasis on "builds" in 3.X actually moves focus _away_ from history and backstory somewhat...


----------



## Thurbane

Ranes said:
			
		

> Honestly, I don't think it's _necessarily_ a waste. Let's not be too precious about our mortal PCs.



Indeed - if there is little chance of permanently losing a character, where is the sense of risk when you adventure? If I know in advance that death is little more than a minor setback, I lose a lot of excitement and anticipation during a combat...


----------



## Hussar

> I have a fundamental problem with the philosophy that it is "unfair" to inflict any form of lasting damage on a character. Characters need to feel that there is a genuine risk when adventuring, otherwise what is the point? You might as well be earning your GP through Craft and Perform checks.




And, you would be wrong in ascribing this to any sort of real thought process.

There are any number of creatures in 3e which destroy equipment.  Of hand, there's the bebilith, babau, various oozes.  Yet, none of these qualify as a Gotcha creature.

Why?

Because these creatures have other functions BESIDES screwing over the players.  The rust monster, the disenchanter and various other gotcha creatures exist for the sole purpose of screwing over the players.  They don't do anything else.  A rust monster can't attack.  It's only function is to destroy equipment.

Do we really need a monster for that?  

As far as dying and raising goes, well, difficulty varied across campaigns.  One might be hard to find a cleric, the next it's easy.  That isn't tied to edition.  OTOH, losing a point of Con only mattered if you had a 15+ Con to begin with.  I can go from a 14 to a 9 Con, FIVE raise deads and nothing happens to my character.

Compare that to losing a level.

As far as "emphasis on builds" there's two reasons for that.  One, in earlier editions, you couldn't do it at all.  Whatever you played at 1st level was what you played at 21st level.  All the "building" went on at chargen.  There were no builds in earlier editions to complain about since there was no way you could do it.

Secondly, I fail to see the problem anyway.  If a player plans out his character from 1st to 20th level, he's assuming two things:  one, he's still going to be playing with you a year or two from now, and two; your campaign will still be going two years from now.  How are either of those a bad thing?  Planning a fighter from 1st to 20th is EXACTLY THE SAME as playing a 1e or 2e fighter.  The only difference is that I'm in control of how the character will look in 19 levels instead of the PHB.  OH, shock and horror that players have control over their characters.  

The number one thing that bugs me about these kinds of discussions, is the elitist attitudes that come out.  That there are wrongbadfun sorts of inspirations for the game and that any other playstyle is also wrongbadfun.  BR above calls CCG's "crap".  Why?  Is there something inherently bad about drawing inspiration from Yugioh?

Little story.  I teach English in Japan.  The other day, one of my younger students, about 10 years old, came in for class with a stack of Yugioh cards.  To be honest, I've never really paid much attention to Yugioh and never seen the cartoon.  So, this kid starts showing me his cards because he's all proud of his latest one.  Fine.  I wind up talking with him for about an hour about the game.  Afterwards, I think to myself, "Wow, here's this kid, about the same age I was when I started gaming, getting into the genre in a fun way that's going to hold his attention for years."  As I looked at the cards, I couldn't help but think that a number of the monsters would work great in my campaign as would a number of the effects.

Great inspiration.  But, then I think, hey if this kid comes online to look at D&D, he's going to run into some Curmudgeon who's going to tell him that his hobby is crap and immature.  I know that would turn me off from D&D.  Why play a game where other people are just going to look down their noses at me?  I get enough of that in real life.

There are no bad inspirations, just bad players.


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> And, you would be wrong in ascribing this to any sort of real thought process.
> 
> There are any number of creatures in 3e which destroy equipment.  Of hand, there's the bebilith, babau, various oozes.  Yet, none of these qualify as a Gotcha creature.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Because these creatures have other functions BESIDES screwing over the players.  The rust monster, the disenchanter and various other gotcha creatures exist for the sole purpose of screwing over the players.  They don't do anything else.  A rust monster can't attack.  It's only function is to destroy equipment.



Or as a plot device or adventure hook - i.e. "Oh no, the Dwarven mithril vein is being attacked by some kind of monster that is destroying the ore!"

Hint: anything that can "screw over" a player can also screw over an NPC.

Through some clever wrangling or a charm monster spell, the players unleash a rusty in the armory of the marauding Hobgoblin horde. Or sic it on an Iron Golem, for that matter...


> Do we really need a monster for that?



Monster, trap, I fail to see the difference, except that a monster in ambulatory, of course. Why would you be OK with a trap that destroys equipment, but not OK with a monster that does so?

Also note: just because it's in the MM doesn't mean a DM *has* to use it. I see this as more of the "player vs. DM" mentality I keep seeing. You assume that because something exists, the DM will invariably use it "to screw over the players".  


> As far as dying and raising goes, well, difficulty varied across campaigns.  One might be hard to find a cleric, the next it's easy.  That isn't tied to edition.  OTOH, losing a point of Con only mattered if you had a 15+ Con to begin with.  I can go from a 14 to a 9 Con, FIVE raise deads and nothing happens to my character.
> 
> Compare that to losing a level.



I see your point, but then you also had the "System Shock/Resurrection" percentages to consider. The major difference is that one is something lasting, that if you let it happen too often, or didn't fall in the 9-14 range, there was a very noticable effect.

Who's going to care in the long run that they lost a level way back when, and caught up with the rest of the party in almost no time. No real disinsentive to being reckless, assuming availablility of a Cleric of appropriate level.

It's the same way I feel about comics where you just know that no matter how many times a superhero dies, there is going to be some hokey way for him to come back to life. It stops me having much investment in the character or the story, when you know his life isn't really in any lasting danger. I much prefer "gritty" comics where once a character dies, he is gone forever.

But I will freely admit this is a personal taste thing - different people enjoy different styles of play.


> As far as "emphasis on builds" there's two reasons for that.  One, in earlier editions, you couldn't do it at all.  Whatever you played at 1st level was what you played at 21st level.  All the "building" went on at chargen.  There were no builds in earlier editions to complain about since there was no way you could do it.
> 
> Secondly, I fail to see the problem anyway.  If a player plans out his character from 1st to 20th level, he's assuming two things:  one, he's still going to be playing with you a year or two from now, and two; your campaign will still be going two years from now.  How are either of those a bad thing?  Planning a fighter from 1st to 20th is EXACTLY THE SAME as playing a 1e or 2e fighter.  The only difference is that I'm in control of how the character will look in 19 levels instead of the PHB.  OH, shock and horror that players have control over their characters.



Sarcasm aside, you have taken my "builds" comment in totally the wrong context. Perhaps I didn't word it well.

I really have no problem with "builds" - but I won't sit by and hear it said the 3.X places *more* emphasis on backstory and history than earlier editions, when by all of my experience and anectdotal evidence it is simply not the case. People can build richly detailed characters in any edition - I was simply pointing out that while the "dungeoneering" emphasis of earlier eds *may* have been one factor to less backstory back then, that "builds" are another aspect which *may* effect the amount of backstory now.


> The number one thing that bugs me about these kinds of discussions, is the elitist attitudes that come out.  That there are wrongbadfun sorts of inspirations for the game and that any other playstyle is also wrongbadfun.  BR above calls CCG's "crap".  Why?  Is there something inherently bad about drawing inspiration from Yugioh?



I agree, but let me just say that I see elitism on *both* sides of the fence. I see just as many "1E was unplayable" comments in this thread as I do "3E isn't really D&D"...


> Little story.  I teach English in Japan.  The other day, one of my younger students, about 10 years old, came in for class with a stack of Yugioh cards.  To be honest, I've never really paid much attention to Yugioh and never seen the cartoon.  So, this kid starts showing me his cards because he's all proud of his latest one.  Fine.  I wind up talking with him for about an hour about the game.  Afterwards, I think to myself, "Wow, here's this kid, about the same age I was when I started gaming, getting into the genre in a fun way that's going to hold his attention for years."  As I looked at the cards, I couldn't help but think that a number of the monsters would work great in my campaign as would a number of the effects.
> 
> Great inspiration.  But, then I think, hey if this kid comes online to look at D&D, he's going to run into some Curmudgeon who's going to tell him that his hobby is crap and immature.  I know that would turn me off from D&D.  Why play a game where other people are just going to look down their noses at me?  I get enough of that in real life.
> 
> There are no bad inspirations, just bad players.



I agree with all of this too. As I said waaay back in this thread, I'm not so much attacking 3.X as defending earlier editions.

And as I keep saying until I'm blue in the face, there is no scientifically "better" edition of D&D, only those that are the most enjoyable for an individual or a group.


----------



## Mokona

*D&D* looks different but it plays the same.    My friends and I fight with our characters and tell a story in a game with some randomness thrown in.

*D&D* does and should focus on K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid).  As *D&D Miniatures* get more time it seems clear from R&D articles that *Wizards of the Coast* is learning that *D&D* doesn't need to be this complicated.  I look forward to the direction they're heading.


----------



## BroccoliRage

Collectible card games ARE crap in my opinion. You will never see me at a Yu-gi-oh board. I find them to be boring marketing devices. I hope that the boy isn't so impressionable as to take the word of a stranger as law. He can like what he wants.

If some kid is really going to take my opinion to heart, I fail to see how that's my problem. It's an opinion I stated, not a fact. Honestly, I really don't have an attachment to your students. If that makes me a "curmudgeon" (sticks and stones may break my bones, but Victorian era insults will never hurt me), so be it.

It's not my job to foster folks' interest in their hobby. If the boy has fun with his game, which I still consider crap more appropriate for a young child like him, then why should he worry about reading something I, someone he never met and most likely never will, think? 

Besides, how long until the neighborhood bully berates him up for being a nerd, if he follows his hobby into his teenage years? Will he quit then? All of his here have been made fun of at some point for playing table top rpg's.


I never attacked any earlier editions. Folks on here have inferred statements about sales spikes, differences in game mechanics, and so forth, as attacks. I've noticed, in this thread, a few quotes made by P&P, Philotomy, and others that are falsely attributed to me. Stop being so sensitive.

And since the gauntlet keeps getting thrown, I'll throw one of my own. Both P&P and I both stated (albeit in different terms) a solid reason relating to mechanics why we say 3e isn't D&D. So far, the only replies I have seen can be summed up in the following sentence:

"It's D&D because there's still a group of adventurers killing things during combat."

Hmmm. So Hero Quest, Cardmaster, Rune Master, Holy Lands, Spiritual Warfare, Cthulhu: Dark Ages, Mage, Tunnels & Trolls, Dungeon!, Dragon Slayers, MERP, GURPS, RIFTS, Alternity, Gamma World, Boot Hill, Fringeworthy, and Gladiator are all D&D? 

If so, what makes them the same OUTSIDE of ambigous statements that easily encompass the whole of RPG's?

If not, what makes them different? Is it mechanics? Kind of how 3e has very different mechanics when compared to ALL earlier editions of D&D, which all had similiar mechanics and are interchangeable?

Note: I have never said that d20 is an INEFERIOR system because it isn't D&D. I've only said it is different. I don't prefer it, but that is not indicative of objective quality, only of my preferences. I don't use the systems above for fantasy, because I don't need them. I'm a rabid Tolkein fan and I don't use MERP. Why? Because I don't need it, not because it's a bad system.

Let's stick to the argument at hand, instead of trying to defame me by screaming, "But what of the children? Shame on you, you curmudgeon!". I have not once insulted anything/anyone with the exception of CCG's (which are not the topic of this thread), don't kick mud on me. I don't tell people that they shouldn't like what they like. Just like my mind about d20 Fantasy hasn't been changed by this thread.


----------



## BroccoliRage

MY mistake. I did make a pretty lighthearted comment regarding 3e to another grognard about 3e monsters. It was intentionally silly and not meant to be any kind of real argument.

I'm not going to apologize for it, though. It's a harmless statement.

I'm not asking for apologies either. But if you want to debate me, at least do it like an adult and stay on target.


----------



## Hussar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I see your point, but then you also had the "System Shock/Resurrection" percentages to consider. The major difference is that one is something lasting, that if you let it happen too often, or didn't fall in the 9-14 range, there was a very noticable effect.
> 
> Who's going to care in the long run that they lost a level way back when, and caught up with the rest of the party in almost no time. No real disinsentive to being reckless, assuming availablility of a Cleric of appropriate level.
> 
> It's the same way I feel about comics where you just know that no matter how many times a superhero dies, there is going to be some hokey way for him to come back to life. It stops me having much investment in the character or the story, when you know his life isn't really in any lasting danger. I much prefer "gritty" comics where once a character dies, he is gone forever.
> 
> But I will freely admit this is a personal taste thing - different people enjoy different styles of play.




I'm curious about this, why do you think the PC would catch up?  Since everyone at the table receives the same xp, losing a level means you are a level down for the duration of the campaign.  You might catch up that level from time to time, but, everyone else at the table will level before you.  All that would happen is that everyone at the table would get more xp/encounter since the average party level is lower.

Granted, dying at very early levels means that you don't lose much xp, but, then again, the odds of the party bothering to res a 5th level character or lower are pretty long.  At higher levels, the level lost is actually pretty significant.

BR, let me ask you something then, outside of mechanics, what makes earlier editions D&D?  I know it's poor form to answer a question with a question, but, then again, KM just got blasted for asking for concrete information about what can be done in earlier editions that can't be done in 3e, so, excuse me for not jumping up to your challenge.


----------



## MerricB

Hussar said:
			
		

> I'm curious about this, why do you think the PC would catch up?  Since everyone at the table receives the same xp,




3.5e changed the way XP is assigned to the method introduced in the FRCS: each PC's XP is calculated invidually; their level vs. CR, rather than APL vs CR.

I use the 3.5e method myself. Although a lower-level PC *can* catch up, it isn't as fast as you might think if there's only one or two levels different.

In fact, 1e was even faster for low-level PCs "catching up". A 1st level PC with a group of 6th level PCs would find themselves very quickly (assuming they didn't die) at a level approaching that of the others.

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> And since the gauntlet keeps getting thrown, I'll throw one of my own. Both P&P and I both stated (albeit in different terms) a solid reason relating to mechanics why we say 3e isn't D&D. So far, the only replies I have seen can be summed up in the following sentence:
> 
> "It's D&D because there's still a group of adventurers killing things during combat."




Hehe. And taking treasure. You forgot that. And taking treasure!

Seriously, I have played D&D since the AD&D days before Unearthed Arcana, and there's a clear line of descent from Original D&D to 3E. 

Feats were introduced to the game in _Unearthed Arcana_ and _Oriental Adventures_. Skills in _Supplement 1: Greyhawk_. Noncombat & variable Skills in _Oriental Adventures_. Variable thief skills in _PHB 2nd Edition_. Stat increases in _Unearthed Arcana_.

The key system of D&D is combat. (Let's face it, it was pretty much the only system in oD&D!) It consists of the following parts:

* Initiative - completely different in every edition.  You can't take this as indicative of anything! 
* Hit Points - the die sizes change from edition to edition, but the basic idea of roll Hit Die and add Con mod is there in all editions. Key difference for 1e/3e is that it keeps going beyond 9th level without hitting "name" for every class. (Mind you, see Bard & Monk in 1e)
* Armour Class - Starts at 10. Reversing in 3e just cosmetic.
* Damage rolls - roll a die, add modifiers. Same in all editions.
* Attack rolls - roll a d20, add modifiers. Compare to target. Same in all editions.

There are many, many other parts of core D&D that haven't changed that much over the years.

Cheers!


----------



## BroccoliRage

Initiative is pretty relative in all editions. That's one of my big beefs with Gygax. I like the guy a hell of a lot, but his writing is esoteric as hell at times. The 1e books are fun to read, and are great at teaching a DM the very basics of running a role playing game, but Gary seems to assume that everyone reading the book understands his stream of conciousness. To tell the truth, I came up with my own version of intiative based on just 1d6 roll.

Yeah, HP differs somewhat, but last I checked a hit die is 1d8 in all editions. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not sure what exactly I should be looking up about the bard and monk in 1e, though. I guess I missed the point.

Armor Class? Reversal? COSMETIC?!!!!!!! (sputters, goes into seizure, head explodes)

Yes, I understand what it is you're saying when referring to attack and damage rolls. But, then again, that's the same in damn near every RPG I ever played. So with that argument, then all those other games I mentioned are D&D as well. While we're applying Ocham's Razor, we could also say that every RPG is the same. Maybe I'm obstinate, but I'm just not seeing it. A 3e 1st level character would simply mow through 1e 1st level character, if you were to run both systems simultaneously. 1e vs 2e? the two characters would have a much more even fight. I'm a fan of running more than one system simultaneously since I saw Mentzer talk about it at DF and tried it myself, so I've run these situations and the results have almost only been the same.

The tables or THAC0 can be applied to every version of D&D, but d20 Fantasy just doesn't mesh well with them.


----------



## MerricB

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> Initiative is pretty relative in all editions. That's one of my big beefs with Gygax. I like the guy a hell of a lot, but his writing is esoteric as hell at times. The 1e books are fun to read, and are great at teaching a DM the very basics of running a role playing game, but Gary seems to assume that everyone reading the book understands his stream of conciousness. To tell the truth, I came up with my own version of intiative based on just 1d6 roll.




Have a look at the initiative system in Eldritch Wizardry. That's a mad, mad system.

OD&D had no initiative system - defaulted from Chainmail, I guess.
OD&D Eldritch Wizardry used a segment-based one. It's odd.
Basic D&D (Holmes) used highest Dex. 
AD&D (Gygax) tried d6s with lots and lots of special cases. Bad.
Basic D&D (Moldvay) and later (Mentzer) used d6, and is the normal system we used.
Gary used d10 at home.
AD&D 2E used d10s, with optional system for modifiers and D&D
I've seen tournament D&D use a system from Dragon: spells were 1d4+casting time; it was odd.
AD&D 2E Player's Option went for first attack based on weapon speeds or casting times (slow, average, fast), with a d10 roll changing things occasionally.



> Yeah, HP differs somewhat, but last I checked a hit die is 1d8 in all editions. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not sure what exactly I should be looking up about the bard and monk in 1e, though. I guess I missed the point.




Only a monster's HD is always d8. Well, it was d6 in oD&D...

According to edition, a Fighter has a d6, d8 or d10 Hit Die. 

Fighters reached 9d10 HD in AD&D, and then went +3 hp per level beyond that. Monks could conceivably reach 18d4 HD, and Bards had d6 Hit Die every level they advance (to 23?) on top of their HD from fighter and thief levels as well.



> Armor Class? Reversal? COSMETIC?!!!!!!! (sputters, goes into seizure, head explodes)




Really. (I do believe it was suggested in Dragon magazine in either 1e or 2e days as well as a method of simplifying things).



> Yes, I understand what it is you're saying when referring to attack and damage rolls. But, then again, that's the same in damn near every RPG I ever played.




You haven't played nearly enough games, then. 

D&D (in pretty much every edition) is 1d20 plus some mods against a target number. You then roll a number of polyhedral dice and subtract the result from the opponent's hp.

That is *significantly* different than other RPGs. Coming to mind:

_Rolemaster_ - roll 1d100, open-ended. Add your attack modifier. Subtract your opponent's defense modifier. Compare the result, cross-referenced with the opponent's armour type, on a table specifically for your weapon. Subtract the number indicated from your opponent's hit points, and roll for a critical result if indicated. (Damage doesn't kill PCs, Crits kill PCs!)

_James Bond_ - Multiply your Skill rating by the Difficulty Class of the shot (modified for distance, dodging, etc.) This is the % chance you'll hit. Roll d% and compare. Depending on how low you go (lower than the target number, lower than half the target number, lower than 1/10 the target number!) you get a result class of 1-4 (or F for fail). Cross reference the result class with the weapon damage table to discover whether the opponent is grazed, wounded, incapacitated or dead.

_Vampire_ - I don't really know the system. Correct me if I'm wrong: Roll a number of d10s equal to your attack skill. Each one that exceeds the target number is a "hit". The opponent rolls a number of d10s to negate your hits.

_Star Wars d6_ - Roll d6s equal to your skill, and try and beat the target number (either determined by range or by opponent's roll if dodging). If you hit, roll damage d6s according to the weapon code. Your opponent rolls d6s according to their Strength score. Depending on the ratio of Damage to Strength, they may be stunned, wounded, incapacitated or killed.

_Runequest_ - (Again, a system I don't know well) Roll d% and try to score under your skill percentage. The opponent tries to do the same with dodge or parry. If you hit, roll dice for damage, subtracting hits from total HP and hit-location HP. You can kill someone with a hit to the head even if you don't remove all the HP.



> So with that argument, then all those other games I mentioned are D&D as well. While we're applying Ocham's Razor, we could also say that every RPG is the same. Maybe I'm obstinate, but I'm just not seeing it. A 3e 1st level character would simply mow through 1e 1st level character, if you were to run both systems simultaneously.




I really advise you to compare the difference between a oD&D fighter (d6 hit dice, at most a +1 con modifier, no bonuses to hit and damage) and an AD&D 1E UA fighter (d10 hit dice, at most a +4 con modifier, at most a +6 bonus to hit and +9 to damage.

Compare giants between 1e and 2e!

Cheers!


----------



## BroccoliRage

I'm not familiar with OD&D, I understand B/X though. The original D&D is something I have had  no exposure to. I cut my teeth on 1e.

Are we counting the UA as core, for the purpose of this discussion?

There is a pretty big bump to giants and dragons between 1e and 2e, and I prefer the 2e treatment to be honest. But both can be faced by characters of either edition.

What I meant regarding all the games being the same is, since were eliminating the details between editions, that every rpg i have ever played has consisted of rolling a die and trying to hit a pre-determined target number, whether that be high or low.


----------



## MerricB

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> I'm not familiar with OD&D, I understand B/X though. The original D&D is something I have had  no exposure to. I cut my teeth on 1e.




I love B/X D&D. It's a superior system. I learnt from Moldvay BD&D and AD&D 1e at the same time. (This was about 1982). Moldvay did a great job of teaching the basics of being a DM - something that isn't in AD&D. Gary's speaking to a more experienced audience.



> What I meant regarding all the games being the same is, since were eliminating the details between editions, that every rpg i have ever played has consisted of rolling a die and trying to hit a pre-determined target number, whether that be high or low.




One day, try playing _Lace & Steel_, if you can find it. It's a great game, with an ingenious card-based combat system. 

If you reduce a RPG system to "roll a die and you succeed or fail", then - yes - RPG systems do begin to look similar. However, when you look at things slightly more closely, you notice some striking similarities or differences.

For the moment, I'll ignore saving throws (they changed significantly in the details between 2e and 3e). I can use a 2e monster in a 3e game with only two changes to the stats.

Let's take an Ogre. 
AC 5, HD 4+1, THAC0 17, #AT 1, D 1-10.
To transform into a 3e creature - AC is 20-AC.
AC 15
Attack bonus is 20-THAC0
Attack +3 (1d10)

There you go.  I did that a lot in September 2000, after the 3e PHB had come out and the 3e MM still had a month to go.  Two numbers are simply reformatted and we have the 3e system.

Obviously, it's weaker than a 3e Ogre. Why? Ability scores. The prime difference between 3e and previous editions. (Funnily enough, a 2e ogre wielding a greatsword would convert to 3e as Attack +5 (1d12+6) - it only uses its strength bonus to hit & damage when wielding weapons!)

There's a fascinating example in BECM D&D of the use of ability scores. In B/X D&D, monsters don't have ability scores. Unfortunately, with the Master rules, they added the _maze_ spell, which requires you to know that target's Intelligence. Oops. So, in the Master book, there's a table listing all the monsters' Intelligence scores from each of the previous rulebooks, just to allow this one spell to work. Go figure. 

3e is greatly removed from oD&D as to its system, but much less so when compared to 2e with Player's Option. There is a clear line of descent through the previous systems, as well as mechanics that are obviously still inspired from the optional combat system of OD&D. (The default combat system in OD&D used the Chainmail tables... and no hit points! You either were killed by a blow or you were fine!)

The functioning of AC, the d20 attack roll, Hit points and basic spells such as _magic missile_ and _fireball_ are recognisable throughout the editions.

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> Are we counting the UA as core, for the purpose of this discussion?




What an interesting question!

The answer is yes - with qualifications. Certainly, the use of UA was assumed by most AD&D books after it was introduced. It's not an optional book.

However, when I discuss the difference between editions, I look at D&D at various points in time. In 1974, there was no _Supplement I: Greyhawk_, and so the game is extremely different from what came later. When I discuss AD&D, I refer to it as either AD&D or AD&D+UA. For 1979-1984, you have a significant amount of play and development before UA (most of Gygax's work). From 1985 onwards, the game shifts dramatically. Not only because Gary left, but also because of what Gary introduced in UA.

Have you seen _Isle of the Ape_? Gary introduced a bunch of rules for challenging high-level PCs in that which aren't in any other source.

Cheers!


----------



## Hussar

> A 3e 1st level character would simply mow through 1e 1st level character, if you were to run both systems simultaneously. 1e vs 2e? the two characters would have a much more even fight. I'm a fan of running more than one system simultaneously since I saw Mentzer talk about it at DF and tried it myself, so I've run these situations and the results have almost only been the same.




Hang on, that's apples and oranges though.  Compare what those characters are fighting.  A 1e fighter could take on 5 orcs and reasonably be expected to win.  A 3e character dies at the third one.  Or, put it another way, a 1e orc cannot drop a 1e fighter (assuming full hit points) in one round, but a 3e orc can.  

A 2e fighter gets specs.  Plus he likely has two weapon specs as well.  That gives him 5/2 attacks.  Compared to the 1e fighters single attack.  If we whack in the UA then the 1e fighter has specs, and double specs for +3/hit and damage over the 2e fighters +1/+2.

A 2e fighter with an 18/55 str, specs in longsword, using longsword and shortsword can do about 50 points of damage in a single round against an ogre.  More than enough to kill the toughest of ogres in a single round.  At first level.

Show me a 1st level 3e character that can come even close to that level of damage.

The idea that 3e characters are so much more powerful than earlier editions is a myth.  That sort of power doesn't come into the mix until about double digit levels.  But, even then if you compare the characters vs the opponents of their respective games, the 1e fighters are FAR more powerful.  

Or, put it another way, I obliterated a 10th level cleric the other day in a single round, with a Rast (ok, an advanced Rast that was CR 9  ) without any special rolls, crits or magic.  Straight up attack.

Other than a dragon, show me a creature in 1e that can drop a 10th level character from full hit points to dead in a single round.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Hussar said:
			
		

> Other than a dragon, show me a creature in 1e that can drop a 10th level character from full hit points to dead in a single round.




Just off the top of my head:  Spider, large; spider, huge; spider, giant; spider, phase; scorpion, giant; centipede, giant; snake (various kinds); about thirty other poisonous monsters; cockatrice; basilisk; medusa; dracolisk; gorgon; catoblepas; green slime; yellow mold; rot grub; mind flayer; purple worm and about ten other creatures that swallow you whole; demons, daemons, devils and assorted other extraplanar creatures; liches and other high level spellcasters...

In fact 1e is absolutely stuffed full of critters that can kill you in a round.


----------



## MerricB

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> In fact 1e is absolutely stuffed full of critters that can kill you in a round.




It certainly is! However, for the purpose of the question, it should be interpreted as what critters can kill you in one round _with damage_.

That's an interesting side-point. Save or die effects. Although 3e has reduced their effectiveness (especially as regards poison!), at higher levels, 3e is actually potentially more deadly than AD&D, due to the increased values of the DCs!

(Personally, I feel that poison has been nerfed too much in 3e, although the nastier poisons, such as that of a wyvern, are still sufficiently terrifying. )

Cheers!


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

MerricB said:
			
		

> It certainly is! However, for the purpose of the question, it should be interpreted as what critters can kill you in one round _with damage_.




I agree, and that in itself is revealing.  3.x hates save-or-die so it's no wonder creatures do more damage; it's just a balancing factor after the initial nerfs.

I think there's another useful point to be drawn from this, though, which is that individual 3.x monsters are undoubtedly nastier in melee because they come in small numbers... 1e has hordes of mooks by comparison.  By the AD&D DMG, the typical size of a band of orcs on dungeon level 2 is 2d6+12 creatures.

Throw 19 orcs at a party of 2nd level 3.x characters and they're toast.

I see this as a consequence of the general slowing down of melee in 3.x.  A fight with 19 orcs would take forever to resolve under those rules!  In 1e it's over in five minutes (or one minute if our intrepid party uses a no-saving-throw area effect wipeout spell like _sleep_) and on with the adventure.


----------



## Thurbane

I think in comparing 1st level characters from various editions and the "Invincible 1E fighter" people are forgetting a major factor - there was no "max HP at 1st level" rule in 1E or 2E. True, many people used it as a houserule, but as far as I am aware, it never existed as an official rule. Add to that that you didn't start getting CON bonus hit points until your score was 15 or higher. It is now entirely possible to have a fighter with ONE hit point at first level.

But let's be generous - lets give him an average 5.5 (6) hit points, plus a 15 CON, for a grand total of 7. Can anyone still not see an orc with his 1d8 battle axe not able to take this guy out in one round? To imagine such a character besting 5 orcs all by himself is somewhat of a strecth, at best.

From all of my personal experience, playing 1E, 2E and 3.5, I would say that an equivalent level 3.5 fighter could easily trounce his earlier edition cousins at any given level.

Not that these kind of comparisons are especially useful anyway...


----------



## Thurbane

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> I agree, and that in itself is revealing.  3.x hates save-or-die so it's no wonder creatures do more damage; it's just a balancing factor after the initial nerfs.



Yeah, that really took myself and my group by surprise when we first switched from 2E to 3.5 - poison didn't kill outright any more. Took us all a bit of getting used to.


> I see this as a consequence of the general slowing down of melee in 3.x.  A fight with 19 orcs would take forever to resolve under those rules!  In 1e it's over in five minutes (or one minute if our intrepid party uses a no-saving-throw area effect wipeout spell like _sleep_) and on with the adventure.



I've also found this to be the case. Back in 1E, we once had a group of TEN players and one DM, and the combat rounds took, on average, about the same amount of time that a round takes us in 3.5 with only FOUR players. Part of that is (was) us still learning the finer points of 3.5 combat, but then again quite a few of the ten 1E players we used to have were fairly new to AD&D.


----------



## Henry

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Yeah, that really took myself and my group by surprise when we first switched from 2E to 3.5 - poison didn't kill outright any more. Took us all a bit of getting used to.
> I've also found this to be the case. Back in 1E, we once had a group of TEN players and one DM, and the combat rounds took, on average, about the same amount of time that a round takes us in 3.5 with only FOUR players. Part of that is (was) us still learning the finer points of 3.5 combat, but then again quite a few of the ten 1E players we used to have were fairly new to AD&D.




I've played a number of AD&D and Castles & Crusades games over the past couple of years, and the hardest thing to do for us, for me especially, was go back to rolling inits every round!  I kept slipping subconsciously back into cyclic inits, and COULD not get used to re-ordering people's inits every round, because when I did roll each round, it got MUUUUCH slower for us.




			
				Thurbane said:
			
		

> But let's be generous - lets give him an average 5.5 (6) hit points, plus a 15 CON, for a grand total of 7. Can anyone still not see an orc with his 1d8 battle axe not able to take this guy out in one round? To imagine such a character besting 5 orcs all by himself is somewhat of a strecth, at best.



Also remembering that the fighters have about the same AC -- about a 4 in 1E, and a 16 or so in 3E, so the Orcs will be hitting at about the same frequency (Remember the orc's to hit charts start at 17 to hit an AC 0, don't they? Or is it 19?). That 1E fighter, by himself, WILL LIKELY be dropped by 5 orcs, even fighting one at a time and them not ganged up.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Henry said:
			
		

> I've played a number of AD&D and Castles & Crusades games over the past couple of years, and the hardest thing to do for us, for me especially, was go back to rolling inits every round!  I kept slipping subconsciously back into cyclic inits, and COULD not get used to re-ordering people's inits every round, because when I did roll each round, it got MUUUUCH slower for us.




You used individual initiative for large combats in 1e?


----------



## thedungeondelver

Hussar said:
			
		

> Other than a dragon, show me a creature in 1e that can drop a 10th level character from full hit points to dead in a single round.




Did...did you ever _play_ 1e?

Can I just use the _Monster Manual_, to spare myself a lot of typing?!


----------



## Henry

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> You used individual initiative for large combats in 1e?




Heck yes, every since I first played with groups in 1E and 2E as early as the late 80's! (Back when I used to play Basic/Expert D&D in the early 80's, we barely played combats by the rules, and just switched turns). In fact, if I understood him right, even Gary used to do that, not even bothering with the 1E init system.

Originally, we used to roll, and we'd call out, "ones," "twos," "threes," "fours," etc. Now, we use init cards for cyclic, and its gotten so fast and second nature for us, we can't get the hang of going back to either writing it down each turn or calling out ones, twos, etc.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Most 1e groups use group initiative in my experience... DM rolls 2d6 (a white d6 for the players and a red d6 for the monsters, in my case) and play it like that.

Individual initiative seems to be used mostly by groups who are (understandably) confused by the 1e initiative rules and (incorrectly) apply DEX modifiers.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Yeah, that really took myself and my group by surprise when we first switched from 2E to 3.5 - poison didn't kill outright any more. Took us all a bit of getting used to.




Although in these later days, I think the 3.5e poison DCs are a little too low - at least for spiders and the like - I revelled in the 3e poison when it first came back. Watching the rogue get reduced to 2 Strength whilst exploring an ancient ruin in the Sea of Dust was just too much fun.

I love the new effects of ability damage in 3e. Save or Die is scary whilst facing it, but then you fail the save and it's over. In 3e, you have to carry the Strength damage. 



> I've also found this to be the case. Back in 1E, we once had a group of TEN players and one DM, and the combat rounds took, on average, about the same amount of time that a round takes us in 3.5 with only FOUR players. Part of that is (was) us still learning the finer points of 3.5 combat, but then again quite a few of the ten 1E players we used to have were fairly new to AD&D.




Hmm. I may be exceptional as 3.5e DMs go, but combats really don't take me that long. If there's anything that makes 3e combats take longer it's the extra dice at high levels; mind you, one thing that can slow things down are special abilities. I enjoy the monsters in MMIV a lot because they have simple and effective special abilities. A lot of AD&D combats (as I recall) were against fairly vanilla monsters, which obviously run quicker.



			
				P&P said:
			
		

> I agree, and that in itself is revealing. 3.x hates save-or-die so it's no wonder creatures do more damage; it's just a balancing factor after the initial nerfs.




Not quite; more damage is meant to balance the increased hit points for the better Con and HD.

A big reason 3.x hates "save or die" is that once you get that ability, there's nowhere else to go. There's no level of ability above it. Well, I guess "save or die and you can't be resurrected", but that's it.

There are certainly enough "save or die" effects in the game, but they're not really interesting. A spider whose poison causes healing spells to harm, and inflict spells to heal... that's interesting.  (Yes, it's in MM4, and I used it last session. Great fun!) You have the Bodak (Fort DC 15 or die!) and the Nightwalker (Fort DC 21 or die!) plus several other creatures...

The Drowned (MM3) have a nice variant on "save or die": you start drowning and die in 3 rounds. Ouch. Many a PC has died to those.

Oh, and don't mention the Shadow Dragon.



			
				Thurbane said:
			
		

> I think in comparing 1st level characters from various editions and the "Invincible 1E fighter" people are forgetting a major factor - there was no "max HP at 1st level" rule in 1E or 2E. True, many people used it as a houserule, but as far as I am aware, it never existed as an official rule. Add to that that you didn't start getting CON bonus hit points until your score was 15 or higher. It is now entirely possible to have a fighter with ONE hit point at first level.




In a recent nostalgia game I ran, there was a druid with 1 hit point. He didn't enjoy the experience.



			
				P&P said:
			
		

> Throw 19 orcs at a party of 2nd level 3.x characters and they're toast.




It should be noted that the tables in the DMG are balanced against a pretty high number of 1e PCs - 6-8 or so, I'd guess. (Note the NPC parties each have 9 members!) A party of 6 second-level 3.5e PCs should probably give a good account of themselves against the orcs... although I'd rather run. I would as a 1e character as well.

Cheers!


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> Because these creatures have other functions BESIDES screwing over the players.  The rust monster, the disenchanter and various other gotcha creatures exist for the sole purpose of screwing over the players.  They don't do anything else.  A rust monster can't attack.  It's only function is to destroy equipment.





You're just yanking my chain, right?  You are aware that rust monsters have a bite attack?

In any event, you clearly wouldn't care for the Mining Guild of Umar-To, which sends out assay teams with leashed rust monsters in order to search for new veins of ore (they can smell up within 90 feet)....Or the time that a group of grim adventurers broke into the Iron Citadel by rusting away a portion of a wall....After all, those things are un-possible.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Ranes said:
			
		

> Honestly, I don't think it's _necessarily_ a waste. Let's not be too precious about our mortal PCs.





But...but...but....They are all special snowflakes!


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> BR, let me ask you something then, outside of mechanics, what makes earlier editions D&D?  I know it's poor form to answer a question with a question, but, then again, KM just got blasted for asking for concrete information about what can be done in earlier editions that can't be done in 3e, so, excuse me for not jumping up to your challenge.





And, yet, KM _did_ receive concrete information as well.  The differences in mechanics that make 3e more like RM are a prime example of someone answering with concrete information.  Even I, who did the "blasting" (and that was more for the change of "topic" as it were -- KM asked about the "soul" of D&D, and then concluded that the editions were all the same because the replies he got dealt with issues other than mechanics....making the OP a question designed to foster a conclusion if there ever was one), gave the example of the shift in focus between what the characters _do_ to how the characters _are made_.

(BTW, noting that such a change has occurred _is not synonomous_ with claiming that players shouldn't have any control over how their characters develop, as was implied.  That the game _becomes about making builds_ however, takes it too far IMHO.  And the problem isn't that the choices are available; the problem is that there aren't enough ways to get back on track if you don't plan for 20th level at 1st.  A problem I solved for my home game.)


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

MerricB said:
			
		

> Feats were introduced to the game in _Unearthed Arcana_ and _Oriental Adventures_.  <snip>  Stat increases in _Unearthed Arcana_.





What exactly do you mean by feats here?  What exactly do you mean by stat increases?


RC


----------



## MerricB

_Joining us in the blue corner, are those stalwart adventurers from G1! Let's hear it for the G1 characters! Yay!_

Frush O'Suggil. Human Fighter 14. HP 104 (Con 17)
Redmod Dumple. Dwarf Fighter 9. HP 82 (Con 17)
Beek Gwenders of Croodle. Half-Elf Ranger 9. HP 93 (Con 18)

_Joining us in the red corner, are a few creatures from the Monster Manual! Hiss! Grr!_

Aerial Servant - max 32 damage (HD 16)
Baluchitherium - max 40 damage (HD 14)
Cave Bear - max 28 damage (HD 6+6)
Stag Beetle - max 36 damage (HD 7)
Bulette - max 84 damage (HD 9)... and Redmod Dumple is down!
Carrion Crawler - max 0 damage. (go figure)
Chimera - max 34 damage
Type VI Demon - max 54 damage
Pit Fiend - max 20 damage. (Wimp!)
Tyrannosaurus Rex - max 52 damage
Dragonne - max 34 damage
Dragon Turtle - max 56 damage
Earth Elemental - max 34 damage
Loxodont (African Elephant) - max 68 damage (huh?)
Ettin - max 34 damage
Cloud Giant - max 36 damage
Fire Giant - max 30 damage
Storm Giant - max 42 damage
Iron Golem - max 40 damage
Hydra - max 40 damage (12-headed hydra, but only 4 can attack one opponent)
Kobold - 4 damage
Lynx, Giant - 8 (_"Whaddya mean we gotta talk to this lynx?? The last mnster we talked to ate half the party!"_)
Manticore - 36 damage (spikes)
Mastodon - 68 damage (the moral of the story is: don't anger the elephants)
Nightmare - 28 damage
Nymph - see below (a double entendre!)
Ogre - 10 damage
Giant Otter - 18 damage. (Yes, a giant otter is more dangerous than an ogre. Huh?)
Owlbear - 24 damage. (New Owlbear in Blood War. Yay!)
Piercer - 24 damage.
Purple Worm - 32 damage (and hope it doesn't roll high!)
Remorhaz - 36 damage
Roc - 36 damage (Despite the roc carrying an elephant, I'd still prefer to be attacked by the roc.)
Sea Lion - 24 damage
Shambling Mound - 32 damage.
Shrieker - nil. (Its friends, on the other hand...)
Criosphinx - 34 damage
Su-monster - 24 damage (I still don't know what one is)
Titan - 90 damage (17+ HD) ... and Redmod Dumple is down! But Beek is still going!
Troll - 28 damage
Umber Hulk - 34 damage
Whale - 60 damage
Xorn - 33 damage

*The Adventurers win!*

Now, obviously I've left out the unique creatures and dragons. I've also used some rather High-Con PCs.  I rather doubt any fighter of less than 15 Con is going to reach 10th level. 15 Con says "I have 62 hit points at level 10 on average." 16 Con gives 71 hp.

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> What exactly do you mean by feats here?  What exactly do you mean by stat increases?




Feats - UA Weapon specialisation; OA Martial Art Styles; OA Non Weapon Proficiencies, particularly Tracking, Iaijutsu; DSG NWP, particularly Blind-fighting, Endurance, Slow Respiration.

Stat Increases - Paladin and Cavalier.

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> And the problem isn't that the choices are available; the problem is that there aren't enough ways to get back on track if you don't plan for 20th level at 1st.  A problem I solved for my home game.)




I think the rebuilding and retraining rules in PHB2 go a long way towards solving these problems.

Cheers!


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

What I learned from this thread:  

If you assume that 1e AD&D creatures aren't allowed their save-or-die effects and attack in groups of 1, it takes them 2 rounds to kill a 10th level character.


----------



## Raven Crowking

MerricB said:
			
		

> Feats - UA Weapon specialisation; OA Martial Art Styles; OA Non Weapon Proficiencies, particularly Tracking, Iaijutsu; DSG NWP, particularly Blind-fighting, Endurance, Slow Respiration.
> 
> Stat Increases - Paladin and Cavalier.
> 
> Cheers!





That's what I thought.  I'm not sure that I would count class abilities or NWP as feats.

RC


----------



## DestroyYouAlot

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> I agree, and that in itself is revealing.  3.x hates save-or-die so it's no wonder creatures do more damage; it's just a balancing factor after the initial nerfs.




I second this, with a change in emphasis - I was paging through MMII (1e) last night, trying to pick out monsters that _didn't_ save-or-die right off the bat.  (Deathwatch beetle?  I mean, seriously, it's a clicking noise.  That kills you.  From a beetle.  Ridiculous.)  I'm not opposed to the concept, but there's a serious preponderance of these beasties in the 1e books (and, to a lesser extent, the 2e books), and most of them give little or no indication that they're going to just instantly kill you if you fail a save.  (Which is, probably, and for whatever reason, vs. "wand" or "putrefication" or "getting hit by a city bus" or something arbitrary - but I kid.   )  



			
				Thurbane said:
			
		

> But let's be generous - lets give him an average 5.5 (6) hit points, plus a 15 CON, for a grand total of 7. Can anyone still not see an orc with his 1d8 battle axe not able to take this guy out in one round? To imagine such a character besting 5 orcs all by himself is somewhat of a strecth, at best.
> 
> From all of my personal experience, playing 1E, 2E and 3.5, I would say that an equivalent level 3.5 fighter could easily trounce his earlier edition cousins at any given level.
> 
> Not that these kind of comparisons are especially useful anyway...




I agree with you here, on both points, again with a change in emphasis - given the same numbers, Mr. 3e kills Mr. 1e and takes  his stuff without too much trouble.  Which is because they inhabit different statistical universes.  Mr. 1e isn't fighting orc warriors who are doing 1d12+3 damage on a strike.  (Never mind the 3d12+9 on a critical... *shudder*)  Like you said, it's not a useful comparison, because the monsters and NPCs are enjoying most of the same advantages that the PCs are.


----------



## Raven Crowking

MerricB said:
			
		

> *The Adventurers win!*
> 
> Now, obviously I've left out the unique creatures and dragons. I've also used some rather High-Con PCs.  I rather doubt any fighter of less than 15 Con is going to reach 10th level. 15 Con says "I have 62 hit points at level 10 on average." 16 Con gives 71 hp.
> 
> Cheers!





Brachiosaurus (100)
Hydra (by heads, ranges from 30 to 192, athough maxes out on 48 per character)
Pyrohydra (by heads, ranges from 30 to 120, without breath weapons, although maxes out on 40 per character)
Mammoth (76)

Average hit points for a 10th level fighter is 10 x 5.5 = 55 plus Con bonus x 10, say an additional 20 hp to be generous, for 75 hp.

I did allow the brachiosaurus to step on its victim (max damage 80), but otherwise ignored special attacks.  In the case of the 1e carrion crawler, 6 attacks lead to 6 chances to be paralyzed.  How long does that paralysis last?

In the case of energy drain monsters (max loss of 2 levels in AD&D 1e), hit point loss occurs from the level drain itself.

Add special abilities, and the 1e DM can make 10th level PCs drop like flies, if that is his goal.  As can the 3e DM, really.


----------



## thedungeondelver

MerricB said:
			
		

> DSG NWP, particularly Blind-fighting, Endurance, Slow Respiration.





Gary has flat out stated that the DSG and WSG are 2e books despite what the cover says so I'm not entirely sure they're valid arguments against 1e, Merric.


----------



## DestroyYouAlot

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Gary has flat out stated that the DSG and WSG are 2e books despite what the cover says so I'm not entirely sure they're valid arguments against 1e, Merric.




I'm not sure a "Gary said" argument holds much water, here - and it seems like the main driving force behind that statement is that he just didn't _like_ them.  (And can you really retroactively assign 2e status to books that came out before 2e existed?  Moreover, that'd imply that the Manual of the Planes was "even more 2e" by chronology.)  Besides, he didn't even work there anymore, he may not be the best authority for the issue.


----------



## thedungeondelver

MerricB said:
			
		

> That's an interesting side-point. Save or die effects. Although 3e has reduced their effectiveness (especially as regards poison!)




"reduced their effectiveness" = removed entirely.  After all we can't offend the twinks!  "What?!  What do you mean my super duper ooper looper half titanium dragon/half baaatezzu dire warforged paladin sorcerer got killed by a snake?!"

The constant nerfifying of later edition D&D is there to protect bad players.


----------



## thedungeondelver

DestroyYouAlot said:
			
		

> I'm not sure a "Gary said" argument holds much water, here




Too bad for you, then.

And he was working at TSR while the WSG and DSG were in development.


----------



## thedungeondelver

MerricB said:
			
		

> Now, obviously I've left out the unique creatures and dragons. I've also used some rather High-Con PCs.




Well at least this time you admit you skewed things to fit whatever anti 1e AD&D agenda you're pushing.


----------



## Henry

Gents, let's try to keep an even keel when posting, and make sure we're not raising the thermostat for others to follow suit. So far, I've been more than impressed with the fact that this has continued without any name calling and flame matches, and I'd like to see it not approach it. Otherwise, I can't let it stay open.

To be fair:

Gary by his admission wasn't largely involved in the home office business in the 1984 to 1986 range, because of the California work, and the legal and comtrol troubles the company was embroiled in at the time. While those two books may have had some of the kinds of things that went into 2E, design-wise, they were pretty clearly precursors, not successors. I owned both, and it seemed pretty clear to me.

and Merric is one of the last people I'd accuse of having an Anti-1e agenda.  He's just keen to point out each edition has its warts, 3E included.

Besides that, isn't that getting pretty off topic from the discussion?


----------



## DestroyYouAlot

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Well at least this time you admit you skewed things to fit whatever anti 1e AD&D agenda you're pushing.




Merric's part of the vast right-wing conspiracy to discredit 1st edition AD&D, this has been covered.


----------



## Flexor the Mighty!

Why do you hate so much Merric?  Can't you let it go?  


Seriously though, this is an interesting conversation.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Personally, I tend to think of UA as D&D 1.5.  OA/DSG/WSG/MoP are D&D 1.95.  DragonLance Adventures (TM) only theoretically has anything to do with 1e.  But I think this is personal to me. 

MM2 was the last AD&D book I think of as pre-1.5.


----------



## Henry

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Personally, I tend to think of UA as D&D 1.5.  OA/DSG/WSG/MoP are D&D 1.95.  DragonLance Adventures (TM) only theoretically has anything to do with 1e.  But I think this is personal to me.
> 
> MM2 was the last AD&D book I think of as pre-1.5.




I can see it. I can see a gradual accumulation of ideas and snippets before it wound up at 2E.

However, I loved Dragonlance Adventures. It heavily influenced both the magic items flavor and Clerical domains, gods, etc. that I created for my homebrew campaign. It was one of the first books (given how rare the Greyhawk box was to find at the time) that showed me how a unified campaign world, with its unique variants, custom classes and spells, etc. could look, and how I could do something similar.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

I'm sure Forgotten Realms was around before DLA?


----------



## Flexor the Mighty!

FR didn't have any of the custom classes and stuff that DLA had.  It was similar to the Greyhawk stuff in that it was a world that was totally core AD&D.


----------



## Henry

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> I'm sure Forgotten Realms was around before DLA?




Dragonlance Adventures was 1987, I believe; the first FR box was either 1986 or '87, I think? Also, as Flexor said, FR was pretty vanilla compared to the FR boxed set; while a pretty neat world, it really didn't have the kind of flavor that stood out to the 16-year-old me.  In Greyhawk, and FR before it, Clerics were Clerics were Clerics, for instance: I didn't have the benefit of people like Diaglo, teaching me the kinds of customizations that were going on with OD&D and AD&D back then. Every DM I every played under had clerics of Aphrodite that had the exact same powers and skills as a cleric of Ares, the only thing different was what holy symbol they sported. DLA taught me that an astral cleric would be very different from a war cleric, or a healing cleric, or a sea cleric. Previously, what magic items weren't named after Vecna, Johydee, and Delvhar-Nar were called "sword +1" or "necklace of fireballs". Now, it was "Mageslayer" and "Staff of Magius" and "that magic mouse ring." It really taught me a lot about bringing life to a campaign for players.


----------



## Lanefan

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Individual initiative seems to be used mostly by groups who are (understandably) confused by the 1e initiative rules and (incorrectly) apply DEX modifiers.



Or who, like us, prefer the more realistic approach of not having everyone on a side swing/cast/act at once.  Ditto for re-rolling; we do it because in a real combat the participants don't wait their turn; they act when they can, and the initiative roll* shows when that is.

* - or rolls; if someone can do two or more things in a round for whatever reason (multi-attacks, haste, etc.) each action gets its own initiative.

Lanefan


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Lanefan said:
			
		

> realistic approach


----------



## BroccoliRage

I don't feel that any version of D&D comes even close to simulating real life combat in a a fashion even approaching realism.

Ever been in a fistfight?  Who takes initiative doesn't really matter, good punches do. You can't use 'realism' to defend seperate intiative rolls. D&D is a horrendous portrayal of real life combat, regardless of edition. You have to use your imagination to really get that feel, mechanics will never accurately approach it.

Merric, I noticed you referred to the Cavalier as an example of stat increase. I'm not so sure I agree, because the Cavalier isn't really an improvement on an existing class as much as a brand new class. Maybe I missed a point you were making?


----------



## MerricB

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> Merric, I noticed you referred to the Cavalier as an example of stat increase. I'm not so sure I agree, because the Cavalier isn't really an improvement on an existing class as much as a brand new class. Maybe I missed a point you were making?




The point I'm making regards the development of D&D through the editions (in response to posts saying "3e isn't D&D"). A lot of concepts we now associate with 3e were seen first in use in the second half of 1e. Many (especially NWP and Specialisation) saw a lot more development in 2e.

The NWP of "Blindfighting" is a case in point. There's no skill check associated with it; it merely reduces the penalties for fighting in the dark, which is a typical feat behaviour.

Now obviously, 3e expanded upon this massively, although aided by development in 2e. Many feats relate back to the original Weapon Specialisation of the fighter, of course - and several in that tree are still fighter-only.

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Brachiosaurus (100)
> Hydra (by heads, ranges from 30 to 192, athough maxes out on 48 per character)
> Pyrohydra (by heads, ranges from 30 to 120, without breath weapons, although maxes out on 40 per character)
> Mammoth (76)
> 
> Average hit points for a 10th level fighter is 10 x 5.5 = 55 plus Con bonus x 10, say an additional 20 hp to be generous, for 75 hp.




Fighters have a maximum of 9d10 hit dice, +3 hp per level after that.  The Con bonus only accumulates to level 9, and is ignored subsequently.

Does Gary have an elephant fixation or what? Most of the high-damage creatures are elephants! Poor Pit Fiend! 



> I did allow the brachiosaurus to step on its victim (max damage 80), but otherwise ignored special attacks.  In the case of the 1e carrion crawler, 6 attacks lead to 6 chances to be paralyzed.  How long does that paralysis last?




Until Doomsday, I guess. 



> In the case of energy drain monsters (max loss of 2 levels in AD&D 1e), hit point loss occurs from the level drain itself.




Yep. A 15th level Magic-User who gets energy drained 2 levels only loses 2 hit points, but you can hear the screams around the world. 

Interesting note: if a party faces an energy drain creature, they only want one or two PCs to lose levels. That way, they can keep adventuring with the other PCs and thus gain XP quickly, and much more rapidly attain the level they were on. If every PC loses 2 levels, it's a real pain.

e.g. A group of 6 characters (F7, F7, MU7, MU7, C7, T8) encounters a vampire. The Fighter and MU both are drained to 1st level. By the time the other F7 reaches F8, the new F1 and MU1 will have reached F6 and MU5; by F9, we have F8 and MU9!



> Add special abilities, and the 1e DM can make 10th level PCs drop like flies, if that is his goal.  As can the 3e DM, really.




Indeed. I'm just interested in how deadly 1e monsters actually could be in melee; it's something I haven't really investigated before. I've sort of looked at orcs and goblins that have pretty low damage die, and giants to a certain extent, but not really at the Big Brutes of 1e.

A F10 has about a 50% chance of failing any saving throw - 45% fail chance against death/poison. At F12 it has reached 30% chance of failing. So, poisonous creatures are always of concern to the Fighter. (Hmm - 1e Slow Poison will work even if cast on a "dead" PC if cast within the time limit; does this apply to Neutralise Poison as well?)

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> _Joining us in the blue corner, are those stalwart adventurers from G1! Let's hear it for the G1 characters! Yay!_
> 
> <snip>
> 
> *The Adventurers win!*



Interesting example, but as has been pointed out, there were two major differences between combat back then and now:

A.) 1E relied more on "save or be incapacitated" abilities for a lot (most?) of the major nasties. There were relatively few pure "damage machines"...

B.) 1E generally relied on larger quantities of opponents to throw at a party, as opposed to 3.X which tends to rely less on quantity of opponents and more on quality. That, of course, varies by adventure, but I think it's generally true.


----------



## Lanefan

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> I don't feel that any version of D&D comes even close to simulating real life combat in a a fashion even approaching realism.
> 
> Ever been in a fistfight?  Who takes initiative doesn't really matter, good punches do. You can't use 'realism' to defend seperate intiative rolls. D&D is a horrendous portrayal of real life combat, regardless of edition. You have to use your imagination to really get that feel, mechanics will never accurately approach it.



True enough...but when getting one step closer can be done by such a simple thing, I don't mind.



> Merric, I noticed you referred to the Cavalier as an example of stat increase. I'm not so sure I agree, because the Cavalier isn't really an improvement on an existing class as much as a brand new class. Maybe I missed a point you were making?



The introduction of Cavalier was also the introduction of having stats increase by any means as a simple function of level.  Paladins got it too, as they were dragged under the Cavalier umbrella at that point.  Why they didn't give it to *every* class mystifies me still, though it would have required a re-think of how exceptional strength worked for Fighters and the good Colonel has said in another thread this wasn't up for consideration.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Thurbane said:
			
		

> 1E relied more on "save or be incapacitated" abilities for a lot (most?) of the major nasties. There were relatively few pure "damage machines"...



Giants.  Best killers out there...just ask my players...and mostly by pure old-fashioned loads o' damage.

Particularly if you take the obvious step of giving them their Str. bonus to hit and damage...

Lanefan


----------



## Thurbane

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> Ever been in a fistfight?  Who takes initiative doesn't really matter,



Ever been "king hit" in a fight? I have...not pleasant...


----------



## Keldryn

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> This statement is endorsed by the PapersAndPaychecks school of DMing.
> 
> The idea that a DM can get away without knowing the rules is a bit pathetic, frankly.  It's like a judge who doesn't know the law.  Sure, there might be times when you have to check a detail, but you'd better have everything important sitting in readily-accessible memory.
> 
> Trying to DM a game without rules knowledge is like trying to use the internet via AOL.




I'm sorry, I can't agree with you.  Nobody is born with the knowledge of the rules, and the best way to learn the rules is to have to apply them during play.  You've got to start from somewhere, and not everybody picks up the game by learning to play by joining someone else's game and then starting to DM after "learning the ropes."  Dungeon Master is not a prestige class.  Heck, I was DMing games before I was ever a player... my friends and I had seen D&D ads, I had some Endless Quest books, and we wanted to try it out.  So I bought the "Red Box" Basic Set (in 1986, I think), read through the books once, and figured out how to play as we ran the game.

I've probably only played D&D less than a dozen times since 3rd Edition came out -- and only as a DM those times.  Most of my players know the 3.x rules better than I do, because they've played in other peoples' games during the past six years.  For spell effects, in particular, I need to rely on my friend who is playing the wizard, since he's often been in weekly games using 3rd Edition.  I don't think this makes me a bad DM.

For 1st and 2nd Edition AD&D games, I could intuitively come up with appropriate challenges and rewards for the PCs pretty well, as I'd had a lot of experience doing it.  But it did takes years of DMing to get to that point, and I certainly made a lot of mistakes on the way; the rulebooks didn't provide terribly good guidelines, and published adventures were certainly not the best examples.  CR and "wealth by level" guidelines are just a quick way of assessing general power levels, and they've been awfully useful in planning 3e adventures.  It certainly would have accelerated my learning process had AD&D1e or the old Basic Set provided similarly easy-to-use guidelines.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Interesting example, but as has been pointed out, there were two major differences between combat back then and now:




It's there merely for comparison and discussion, and to view the differences between combat. 



> A.) 1E relied more on "save or be incapacitated" abilities for a lot (most?) of the major nasties. There were relatively few pure "damage machines"...




Hmm. Although there are certainly a lot of "save or you might as well be dead" abilities, I'm not so sure about how often they actually come up in play. My memories of AD&D involve a lot of attritional combat.



> B.) 1E generally relied on larger quantities of opponents to throw at a party, as opposed to 3.X which tends to rely less on quantity of opponents and more on quality. That, of course, varies by adventure, but I think it's generally true.




I agree. In fact, one of the great weaknesses of 3e is that hordes of low-level opponents are rarely a threat - and, IMO, they too quickly become obsolete. (OTOH, I don't know if 30 orcs would even threaten a 10th level AD&D party).

If I could change 3e, I'd dial back the increases to AC and attack bonuses somewhat. The split of armour types into natural/armour/deflection/dodge/shield/Dex is good at providing a system where new magic items can be introduced without requiring a list of examples of how they interact with other items. A dedicated min/maxer can really increase their AC so that it's out of whack with everything else. (I'd personally reduce it to armour, Dex, shield, deflection, with magic arms and armour providing a deflection bonus that doesn't stack with rings of the same).

Cheers!


----------



## Renfield

Ah AC. 3e did get that a little to extreme. It's actually quite easy for a low level character to get to AC 20 which is 3e's version of AC0. I would gasp and choke if even my 3rd level fighter hit AC0 as easily as it can be hit in 3e by a fighter of the same class. Or even a rogue if min-maxed right. I will say 3e allows for taking min-maxing to a whole new level than in previous editions, whether that's a good or bad thing is up to interpretation.


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> Hmm. Although there are certainly a lot of "save or you might as well be dead" abilities, I'm not so sure about how often they actually come up in play. My memories of AD&D involve a lot of attritional combat.



Oh yeah, there was definitely a lot of slogging it out toe-to-toe, but just off the top of my head, I can recall plenty of my characters being: paralyzed by ghouls, petrified by basilisks, confused by umber hulks, death-gazed by bodaks, charmed by beholders (if you were lucky!   ), and, most importantly, poisoned by snakes, spiders, wyverns, medusae, imps, quasits and all the rest.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Oh yeah, there was definitely a lot of slogging it out toe-to-toe, but just off the top of my head, I can recall plenty of my characters being: paralyzed by ghouls, petrified by basilisks, confused by umber hulks, death-gazed by bodaks, charmed by beholders (if you were lucky!   ), and, most importantly, poisoned by snakes, spiders, wyverns, medusae, imps, quasits and all the rest.




Bodaks - how to kill parties. 

Cheers!


----------



## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Brachiosaurus (100)
> Hydra (by heads, ranges from 30 to 192, athough maxes out on 48 per character)
> Pyrohydra (by heads, ranges from 30 to 120, without breath weapons, although maxes out on 40 per character)
> Mammoth (76)
> 
> Average hit points for a 10th level fighter is 10 x 5.5 = 55 plus Con bonus x 10, say an additional 20 hp to be generous, for 75 hp.
> 
> I did allow the brachiosaurus to step on its victim (max damage 80), but otherwise ignored special attacks.  In the case of the 1e carrion crawler, 6 attacks lead to 6 chances to be paralyzed.  How long does that paralysis last?
> 
> In the case of energy drain monsters (max loss of 2 levels in AD&D 1e), hit point loss occurs from the level drain itself.
> 
> Add special abilities, and the 1e DM can make 10th level PCs drop like flies, if that is his goal.  As can the 3e DM, really.




But, that's the point.  Unless you add in those special abilities, like stepping on a target, most of the 1e monsters simply can't do enough damage.  Sure, spiders and other save or die creatures can, but, that was my entire point.  I'm talking about straight up damage.

Never mind that the creatures in 1e were piddly by and large.  How many brachiosaurs fit into a dungeon?  I'm far more likely to encounter a Vrock, which, IIRC, appears in a module for 6th level characters (that hidden shrine or temple one in the jungle that I can never remember the name).  

You had to throw hordes at the party because any single creature died in the second round because characters of an appropriate level rarely missed and the creature had so few hit points.  

To be fair, my experience is similar to Thurbane's.  The only time characters died was when poison or other save or die effects came out.

------------------------

Ok, this is likely going to be a long bit, so, feel free to keep scrolling if you like.  

Just back to the idea that CCG's are crap.  That's a very telling point IMO.  It's not "I don't like CCG's" which is an opinion I can probably agree with, but, "CCG's are crap.  They are bad games."

Why?  What makes a CCG a bad game?  Do they have vague and contradictory rules?  Not really, most of the rules are pretty straight forward and understandable.  Do they try to lock you into a particular playstyle?  Not really, the formulation of a deck depends greatly on the player.  Are there numerous poorly written rules which break gameplay?  Possibly, but, then again, they generally support the game well enough to fix broken rules ASAP.  So, what is it about the game that makes it bad?

IMO, CCG's are not bad games.  They are generally well written, well supported, and a great deal of fun apparently to the people who play them.  That, to me, points to the idea that CCG's are pretty good games.  And, while I know that market factors aren't really a great judge, I would say that the enduring popularity of the games does point to a fair level of the game being ok.  If Magic were crap, wouldn't people stop buying it?

Now, let's get back to the topic at hand.  Every one of those criticisms that I stated for a game being crap can be applied to 1e.  Every one of them.  Does that make 1e a crap game?

Before your head explodes, let me go through them.

*Vague and Contradictory Rules*

Initiative rules in 1e.  There's a pretty prime example.  Weapon vs armor rules - do they apply to creatures?  And, what are the penalties or bonuses for using claws or bites vs particular armors?  How long does subdue last?  The list goes on and on of rules that were vague and confusing.  Add to this some fairly opaque writing styles and it makes the game somewhat difficult to play.

Add to this the schizophrenic nature of supplements and core.  The core says that you should be happy with low stat characters.  But every supplement has NPC's with 17's and 18's in their prime stats.  The core says that you should keep players hungry and treasure low.  But, the core also says that xp will come from treasure and that just about every creature has thousands of gp potentially in its treasure.  In addition, modules have hauls that players actually require bags of holding to cart off all the goodies.  There's so much treasure in some modules that carrying it all is a problem.

*Locking you into a particular style*

Look at the 1e books.  Right in the rules we have a table that states that elves and dwarves don't like eachother.  Why? Other than building off of Tolkein, what possible reason is there to make dwarves and elves dislike each other part of the rules?  After all, neither race covets similar resources, they don't share territory and they have no conflicting goals.  Also, why should the rules dictate campaign setting to me?  Shouldn't the relations between races be up to the individual DM?

Or, why should halflings be athiests?  Why no halfling clerics?  Balance issues?  Pish.  It's because the rules are trying to shoehorn players into a particular format - based on Tolkein and to a lesser extent Howard.  

I'm all for rulebooks giving guidance on campaign building.  That's great.  But, when a particular campaign is hardwired into the rules, to the point where characters are dictated by that setting, then that's an example of poor game design.

_Note, I realize the irony of the above considering how much Greyhawk appears in the 3e PHB.  However, there is a difference.  The Greyhawk references in the 3.5 PHB appear in two places - Gods and named spells.  In the Gods section, it's specifically called out that this is only an example and can and should be changed by the DM and removing the names from spells doesn't actually have any mechanical effects.  In fact, the SRD shows you can remove ALL Greyhawk campaign elements from the game and it plays exactly the same.  Can the same be said for removing racial level limits?_

*Poorly written rules that break the game*

The barbarian, the cavalier.  Oh, how I loved my paladin after UA came out and I became the engine of destruction of the gods.  Automatic 18/00 strength WAHOO!  Never mind the spells in UA.  Yummy.  Or the numerous typos and misprints in the books that were only corrected in Dragon, which, if you were a young man growing up outside of the city, you could only get once in a blue moon.

Heck, I collected the Dragonlance modules.  I actually had to pay for my errata.  DL 5 is an entire module filled with errata of the first four modules.  Now how's that for support?  Stoneskin lasts until you get attacked enough according to my Player's handbook.  We'd cast it days in advance and trounce the first two or three encounters of every adventure.  

It wasn't until years later I found we did things wrong.


----------



## BroccoliRage

I think Card games are crap because I find them to be juvenile.  Noone is being forced to agree with me. Besides, that was a comment made in passing. The larger point behind my original statement was that lots of folks who play rpg's also play card games. the two hold hands, more so than rpg's and board games.

People buy things I consider crap all the time. Consider rap music. I'm just not down with the hip hop. In my opinion, it is absolute garbage. 

I don't think supplement NPC's (are you referring to Elminster in particular here?) are a good example of what a player should look for in a PC. That's purely subjective there. An Elminster type character really bores me. Someone who is just amazing in every sense and has few limitations is not challenging to play, from the gamist or role player's point of view. It may be fun for a 1 off romp, but it gets stale to me. 

1. Esoteric/Contradictory rules

You get alot agreement with me here. I'm almost positive that I do some things "wrong" when I DM 1e (2e is much more defined), and that I have jettisoned some parts of the games folks find essential. That's just their opinions, they are welcome to leave my table at any time. I find Gary's style of writing to be convoluted at times, esoteric at others. 

Again, I was stating an opinion. You disagree. I got the point a while ago.

2. I did away with racial level limits long ago. I also did away with racial stat bonuses. You either qualify for a class or you don't. To still provide an example of the stereotypical elf, halfling, dwarf, whatever, I allow the classes as defined in B/X, and then I bump it up in certain ways to be on a par with AD&D characters. In my games, it is not impossible to have a half orc fighter, human bard, and 1st level Elf in a party. I got the idea after reading something Mentzer wrote, and seeing the paragon classes in the 3e UA, which seem to be an attempt to create B/X style play within the 3e system.

I also feature elves as severe racists, the perpetrators of many genetic cleansing crusades against other races.

One of the nice things about most game systems is that you can pretty much use all editions of them and get rid of what you don't like if you aren't in a tournament setting.

So you named two things I also don't like about (A)D&D, and did away with. Gygax is a great guy, and I do respect him as one of the originators of my hobby. He is not my idol, however, and he does not have final say at my table. And, as he said, that's how it should be.

3. Poorly written rules.

Well, the cavalier and barbarian, if I remember correctly, are not easy to qualify for. I haven't cracked my UA open in some time, so if I'm wrong feel free to correct me. They are somewhat overpowered compared to other classes, but they have drawbacks as well. All things considered, neither are very attractive classes to anyone who isn't seeking serious roleplay conflict. Two more overpowered classes are the monk and asassin, but I haven't run into many problems running games for players using them.

You've mentioned flaws that exist in 1e. I agree with you. But again, based on what I've seen of D&D and 3e, I still prefer D&D.

I probably do things "wrong", and someone with a better knowledge could probably point that out to me if they wanted. I don't care, because every houserules I have in place I deliberated on. I streamlined AD&D for my own use and it is still recognizable as AD&D. Now, if I were to run a tournament, I would be in trouble because my game is not by the book. But I'll be damned if we don't have a blast, and these party balance issues don't come up much. If I awarded XP individually, it may be, but I award XP as a group.

I came up with my modifications years ago, and can still refer to the books for clarification as needed. For me to suddenly drop all of that and convert to 3e would be truly pointless, because I'm not only throwing away all that work but I am rendering my collection inert. And I'm a player, not a collector. That's alot of books to give away. 

You could use all of those reasons to say 1e is crap, but again, that's just an opinion. And one I disagree with. Kind of how my opinion on card games are just an opinion. What water do they really hold outside of my own perspective? You can get bent out of shape over semantics, but that's silly. Collectible cards games are crap. I truly think that. I think the same about most miniature games.

The strength of D&D as opposed to 3e is it's interchangeability and customization. IF you want a more standardized version, play 3e. That's the way to go with that. But I don't like that, I enjoy the the confusion and sense of something being a little bigger than me that I get from individual games. It adds to the overall sense of playing a D&D game, of being in an alien atmosphere, and I find it to be a great help to suspension of disbelief. Some folks may get that from 3e, and if so, more power to them. I do not, and I have given the game an honest try. Aspects of it remind me of playing a video game, watching some bad anime, playing a wargame, and so on. This are my own personal impressions. I don't need a justification. Just like you don't need one for disliking OOP D&D (if, indeed, you do). It's nothing more than preference. IF you look at what I've been saying throughout this thread, you'll see I haven't actually condemned 3e outside of not playing it.

I have yet to encounter a truly bad roleplaying system. I have encountered quite a few I don't care for, for various reasons.


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

_Removed_


----------



## Flexor the Mighty!

I have to say we never used weapon vs armor rules, I don't think Gary did either.  We did simple 1d6 initiative and with a tie being simultaneous. 

Locking you into a particular style is how I view D&D to be honest.  There are no dwarven Wizards even when I run 3e.  I run a greyhawk games and all those assumptions are still in there, for AD&D, 3e, and C&C.  I never really viewed D&D as a generic fantasy game to be honest, It was D&D and had certain assumptions built in.  Racial level limits were ignored as well.


----------



## MerricB

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> I have to say we never used weapon vs armor rules, I don't think Gary did either.




He didn't. I seem to remember he was petitioned to include them (along with the Psionics rules) by well-meaning friends.



> Locking you into a particular style is how I view D&D to be honest.  There are no dwarven clerics even when I run 3e.




Funny, they're there in 1e. (NPC in 1e, PC in 1e+UA). 

More seriously, I have my own restrictions on 3e choices when I run it to fit the style of campaign I want to run. There are certainly assumptions in D&D that you live with, and there are others you can modify. (So, no barbarians, monks or half-orcs in my 3e Ulek campaign).

Cheers!


----------



## The Shaman

Hussar said:
			
		

> Initiative rules in 1e.  There's a pretty prime example.



"Surprise is determined by rolling a six-sided die for each party concerned, modifying the result by using the most favorable member of the party concerned, i.e. a ranger, surprised only on a roll of 1, will represent the whole of a group of other character types. Note, however, the effect of dexterity as detailed below. The same holds for mixed types of monsters." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 61.

"Again, a d6 is rolled, and the scores for the two parties are compared....The higher of the two rolls is said to possess the Initiative for that melee round." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 62.

"It will often occur that initiative determination results in a tie. This merely indicates that each party has equal chances for acting and that ottacks occur simultaneously. In cases of equal initiative score, damage occrues to both groups regardless of what is inflicted." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 63.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Weapon vs armor rules - do they apply to creatures?



"Do not confuse armor which is worn with the armor class (AC) rating of a monster." - 1e _AD&D PHB_, p. 36.

"If you allow weapon type adjustments in your campaign please be certain to remember that these adjustments are for weapons versus specific types of armor, not necessarily against actual armor class." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 28.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> And, what are the penalties or bonuses for using claws or bites vs particular armors?



There are none in the 1e _AD&D DMG_ or _PHB_ - this is rolled into hit dice, which determines attack table.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> How long does subdue last?



"A dragon remains subdued for an indefinite period, but if the creature is not strongly held, well treated, given ample treasure, and allowed ample freedom, it will seek to kill its captor and/or escape." - 1e _AD&D MM_, p. 30.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> The list goes on and on of rules that were vague and confusing.



I find the rules above neither vague nor confusing.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Add to this some fairly opaque writing styles and it makes the game somewhat difficult to play.



For a fantasy roleplaying game based on the fantastic literature of Professor Tolkein, Lord Dunsany, Shakespeare, _Le Morte d'Arthur_, and the Arabian Nights?







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Add to this the schizophrenic nature of supplements and core.  The core says that you should be happy with low stat characters.



"As ADBD is an ongoing game of fantasy adventuring, it is important to allow participants to generate a viable character of the race and profession which he or she desires. While it is possible to generate some fairly playable characters by rolling 3d6, there is often an extended period of attempts at finding a suitable one due to quirks of the dice. Furthermore, these rather marginal characters tend to have short life expectancy - which tends to discourage new players, as does having to make do with some character of a race and/or class which he or she really can't or won't identify with. Character generation, then, is a serious matter, and it is recommended that the following systems be used. Four alternatives are offered for player characters:..." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 11.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> But every supplement has NPC's with 17's and 18's in their prime stats.



NPCs specifically designed to present challenges to the player characters - I don't understand why this is so surprising.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> The core says that you should keep players hungry and treasure low.  But, the core also says that xp will come from treasure and that just about every creature has thousands of gp potentially in its treasure.  In addition, modules have hauls that players actually require bags of holding to cart off all the goodies.  There's so much treasure in some modules that carrying it all is a problem.



It's never assumed that the players and their characters will find everything, nor is it assumed that they will be able to carry it off easily.

1e also includes training costs and other player character expenses such as henchmen and hirelings, taxes and levies, and stronghold maintenance if applicable. And then there was this: "Each player character will automatically expend not less than 100 gold pieces per level of experience per month. This is simply support, upkeep, equipment, and entertainment expense. These costs are to be deducted by the Dungeon Master automatically, and any further spending by the PC is to be added to these costs. Such expense is justified by the 'fact' that adventurers are a free-wheeling and high-living lot." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 25.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Look at the 1e books.  Right in the rules we have a table that states that elves and dwarves don't like eachother.  Why? Other than building off of Tolkein, what possible reason is there to make dwarves and elves dislike each other part of the rules?  After all, neither race covets similar resources, they don't share territory and they have no conflicting goals.



Treehuggers and resource extractors are not in conflict with one another?







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Also, why should the rules dictate campaign setting to me?  Shouldn't the relations between races be up to the individual DM?



They don't, and they are.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Or, why should halflings be athiests?  Why no halfling clerics?



NPC halfling druids, 1e _AD&D PHB_, p. 14.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> I'm all for rulebooks giving guidance on campaign building.  That's great.  But, when a particular campaign is hardwired into the rules, to the point where characters are dictated by that setting, then that's an example of poor game design.



Why are elves immune to _sleep_, more resistant to certain spells, able to see better in low-light conditions, proficient with longsword, rapier, longbow,and shortbow, more alert, and better at finding secret doors without actively searching? Aren't these attributes that describe 3e _D&D_ elves "hardwired into the rules" as well? And if I use these elves as written, aren't they dictating an aspect of my setting? What if I think elves should be presented as they are in Norse mythology? Or in _Three Hearts and Three Lions_? How does 3e make this possible in ways that 1e doesn't?







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> _Note, I realize the irony of the above considering how much Greyhawk appears in the 3e PHB.  However, there is a difference.  The Greyhawk references in the 3.5 PHB appear in two places - Gods and named spells._



_The Greyhawk setting is incorporated into every one of the player character races except halflings in 3e, as well as many of the monsters.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		


			Oh, how I loved my paladin after UA came out and I became the engine of destruction of the gods.  Automatic 18/00 strength WAHOO!
		
Click to expand...


Page number and quote, please? I don't have UA to check this out myself.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		


			Or the numerous typos and misprints in the books that were only corrected in Dragon, which, if you were a young man growing up outside of the city, you could only get once in a blue moon.
		
Click to expand...


GDW did exactly the same thing for Traveller in Journal of the Travellers' Aide Society - it's how things were done before the Intreweb became ubiquitous.

The fact that magazine distribution was spotty where you lived as a kid is hardly a valid criticism. And TSR offered subscriptions.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		


			It wasn't until years later I found we did things wrong.
		
Click to expand...


And that's who's fault, exactly?_


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

The Shaman said:
			
		

> "Again, a d6 is rolled, and the scores for the two parties are compared....The higher of the two rolls is said to possess the Initiative for that melee round." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 62.
> 
> "It will often occur that initiative determination results in a tie. This merely indicates that each party has equal chances for acting and that ottacks occur simultaneously. In cases of equal initiative score, damage occrues to both groups regardless of what is inflicted." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 63.



Uh oh, 1E initiative rules citations have appeared...     

I like 1E a lot, but there's really no denying that the initiative rules are confusing and cumbersome (and perhaps even contradictory, in places).  IMO, the best "by-the-book" resource for running 1E combat is the ADDICT document [link is a PDF] put together by DMPrata.

Personally, I prefer the B/X or BECMI approach to initiative.


----------



## Thurbane

The Shaman said:
			
		

> <snip>



My hat's off to you sir - your post is an inspiration to all of us that remember 1E being a great game, and not the eldritch, unplayable monstrosity that some of these "whippersnappers" are claiming!


----------



## Numion

The Shaman said:
			
		

> It's never assumed that the players and their characters will find everything, nor is it assumed that they will be able to carry it off easily.




1e adventures have been analyzed on these very boards, and the treasures were neither hard to find nor especially cumbersome (other than for the fact there was _so much of it). 




			1e also includes training costs and other player character expenses such as henchmen and hirelings, taxes and levies, and stronghold maintenance if applicable. And then there was this: "Each player character will automatically expend not less than 100 gold pieces per level of experience per month. This is simply support, upkeep, equipment, and entertainment expense. These costs are to be deducted by the Dungeon Master automatically, and any further spending by the PC is to be added to these costs. Such expense is justified by the 'fact' that adventurers are a free-wheeling and high-living lot." - 1e AD&D DMG, p. 25.
		
Click to expand...



That is one nonsensical rule. A pious cleric is high-living like Conan? 

How about letting the players decide how 'high-living' their lot is.._


----------



## Thurbane

Numion said:
			
		

> That is one nonsensical rule. A pious cleric is high-living like Conan?
> 
> How about letting the players decide how 'high-living' their lot is..



I agree that that rule is a little silly, but in my mind, not much more silly than "Characters must have X amount of magic and treasure at X level, otherwise they can't effectively fight X level creatures".


----------



## The Shaman

Numion said:
			
		

> 1e adventures have been analyzed on these very boards, and the treasures were neither hard to find nor especially cumbersome (other than for the fact there was _so much of it_).



I think *Quasqueton*'s methods and conclusions are suspect, for reasons I've detailed in a couple of those threads (and won't repeat here so that this thread doesn't get further off track).

I also have the personal experience of both playing and refereeing some of those modules, and my experience is very different from that assumed by *Quasqueton*. 







			
				Numion said:
			
		

> That is one nonsensical rule. A pious cleric is high-living like Conan?



No, like Friar Tuck.

In our games a pious character would be using treasure and rewards to do good works while the rest of us blew our purses on whores, ale, and games of chance. (I rarely played a pious anything, myself...)







			
				Numion said:
			
		

> How about letting the players decide how 'high-living' their lot is..



And as dungeon master, or collectively as a group, you have that choice - tweak it, or toss it out altogether.

The rule isn't "nonsense": it's internally consistent and works in the context of the other rules of the game. If you don't agree with the premise on which it's based, or if it's not something that adds to your enjoyment of the game, that's something else altogether.


----------



## FireLance

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I agree that that rule is a little silly, but in my mind, not much more silly than "Characters must have X amount of magic and treasure at X level, otherwise they can't effectively fight X level creatures".



Except that one is an actual rule, and the other is a guideline for judging encounter difficulty. 

You know, 3e actually is a fine game, not the soulless, number-crunching exercise that some of the "grognards" are claiming.


----------



## Glyfair

Thurbane said:
			
		

> My hat's off to you sir - your post is an inspiration to all of us that remember 1E being a great game, and not the eldritch, unplayable monstrosity that some of these "whippersnappers" are claiming!




I dunno.  Many of us are just point out the inconsistancy of comparing AD&D _as played_ vs. 3E _as written_.  In my experience, no one came close to playing AD&D as written.  

A lot of the comparisons between AD&D and 3E variations tend to assume that 3E is only played as written, yet AD&D was played without using many of the rules.  I disagree, 3E can be played by discarding chunks of the system.  Yes, there are consequesces of that, but there were consequences of discarding bits of AD&D.  The main difference to me is that most of the rules in 3E were designed with the overall system in mind, but a lot of the rules in AD&D were designed because "we need a rule for this" and the overall structure wasn't necessarily considered.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Glyfair said:
			
		

> I dunno.  Many of us are just point out the inconsistancy of comparing AD&D _as *we* played *it*_ vs. 3E _as written_ *and assuming that other peoples' experiences must have been the same as ours*.




Fixed it...


----------



## Numion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I agree that that rule is a little silly, but in my mind, not much more silly than "Characters must have X amount of magic and treasure at X level, otherwise they can't effectively fight X level creatures".




In 3E there's no rule like that. There are recommendations and consequences of that established baseline, but the PCs are still free to piss away their gold on ale and whores instead of magic items.

What if the PCs are lost in a desert for a months, or are shipwrecked on an island of natives, do they still high-live for 100 gp / level? 

No wonder though why adventurers eventually retire to sell merchandise or keep a tavern. Even 20th level liver can't take 2000 gp a month drinking sessions for long.


----------



## Thurbane

Glyfair said:
			
		

> I dunno.  Many of us are just point out the inconsistancy of comparing AD&D _as played_ vs. 3E _as written_.  In my experience, no one came close to playing AD&D as written.
> 
> A lot of the comparisons between AD&D and 3E variations tend to assume that 3E is only played as written, yet AD&D was played without using many of the rules.  I disagree, 3E can be played by discarding chunks of the system.  Yes, there are consequesces of that, but there were consequences of discarding bits of AD&D.  The main difference to me is that most of the rules in 3E were designed with the overall system in mind, but a lot of the rules in AD&D were designed because "we need a rule for this" and the overall structure wasn't necessarily considered.



I think both myself and several other people have commented that we use as many house rules with 3.X as we did with 1e and 2e...certainly in my case, anyway. I strongly dispute any claim that any edition of AD&D was "unplayable" out of the box. I have played in completely vanilla (i.e. no house rules or 3rd party rules) AD&D many, many times and never had any problems. And yes, we even used weapon vs. armor type modifiers.


----------



## Hussar

> NPCs specifically designed to present challenges to the player characters - I don't understand why this is so surprising.




Except for the fact that a number of those same "NPC's" were pre-gens intended for the players to play.  Take the Heroes of the Lance as a prime example.  Four fighter types in the original 8 characters and 3 of the 4 had 18 percentile strengths.  



> "It will often occur that initiative determination results in a tie. This merely indicates that each party has equal chances for acting and that attacks occur simultaneously. In cases of equal initiative score, damage occurs to both groups regardless of what is inflicted." - 1e AD&D DMG, p. 63.




And, thank you for pretty much making my point for me.  Why the heck should that be written like that and how could anyone possibly defend that as good game design?  How bloody hard would it have been to write:



> In case of ties, all those with the same initiative resolve their attacks before applying damage.




This one pretty much illustrates exactly my point that the writing is opaque.  Confusing writing and convoluted style equate with poor game design, IMNSHO. 

As far as dwarves hating elves and vice versa - one group lives in large forests and the other lives under mountains.  They don't even share the same real estate.  How often could they actually come into conflict?  This was only there because of Tolkein.

As far as 







> For a fantasy roleplaying game based on the fantastic literature of Professor Tolkein, Lord Dunsany, Shakespeare, Le Morte d'Arthur, and the Arabian Nights?




umm, what about Howard, Doyle and Burroughs, none of which were high literature, dense or difficult to understand?  Or should we simply ignore those inspirations?  

Ok, now that I've stirred the pot sufficiently, how about this? 

When 3e came out, it was pretty well received.  Scratch that, it was very well received.  And, by and large, it has been credited with reviving the hobby to a large extent.

How about a little thought experiment?  If we could change history a bit and reverse the order of editions, how would 1e be received?  If 3e had been released in the 70's, followed by 2e then 1e in 2000.  Would 1e be well received in 2000?  Why or why not?


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Hussar said:
			
		

> This one pretty much illustrates exactly my point that the writing is opaque.  Confusing writing and convoluted style equate with poor game design, IMNSHO.




Opinion noted.  

Personally, I don't think the 1e initiative rules were very well thought out and I junked them more than twenty years ago in favour of a heavily house-ruled d6-based system.  1e certainly isn't perfect; initiative, weapons -v- ac type, weapon speed factors and psionics are all rubbish and very few people use them.

Having said that, I don't agree that the writing is too hard to understand.  It's aimed at a literate and intelligent reader; those who failed English 101 shouldn't be playing D&D anyway.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> When 3e came out, it was pretty well received.  Scratch that, it was very well received.  And, by and large, it has been credited with reviving the hobby to a large extent.




Yup.

The only thing 3e did really well was to reverse some of the "plot" and "story" assumptions from 2e.  You know, the railroady DragonLance-style plots which were written in "Chapters" and contained long sections called "When things go wrong" which told the DM how to return to the hackneyed and formulaic progression of events which were _supposed_ to happen when, inevitably, some bored player tried to exercise a bit of free will.

Those assumptions weren't there in early 1e.  They crept in during what I call 1.5e -- the modules from 1983 and on started to take the onus away from the DM to create a proper game environment for the players to explore.  Instead, the DM was supposed to tell the players what to explore, in what order.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> How about a little thought experiment?  If we could change history a bit and reverse the order of editions, how would 1e be received?  If 3e had been released in the 70's, followed by 2e then 1e in 2000.  Would 1e be well received in 2000?  Why or why not?




Turn it round.

RM2 was available in the early 1980's (and as I've demonstrated at length in this thread, 3.x is basically RM, not D&D).  It was a moderately popular system, but had nowhere near the popularity of 1e.

Systems like 1e have become available since 2000.  Look at Hackmaster, C&C and OSRIC -- all attempts to recreate the 1e ruleset.  They've been moderately popular, but have nowhere near the popularity of 3e.

(OSRIC turned into a Silver download from RPGNow within 3 weeks of being put up there... if all the OSRIC downloads from all the sources were included in that, OSRIC would be at least triple platinum, and possibly octuple platinum or more; I have no idea how many copies are floating around right now.)

What does this tell us?  It tells us that a lot of people buy the "official" version of D&D.  It tells us nothing about which is the better system.


----------



## Maggan

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> (OSRIC turned into a Silver download from RPGNow within 3 weeks of being put up there... if all the OSRIC downloads from all the sources were included in that, OSRIC would be at least triple platinum, and possibly octuple platinum or more; I have no idea how many copies are floating around right now.)




What does that mean in numbers downloaded from RPGnow? 1000 downloads? 10 000? Just trying to gauge the amount of interest.

/M


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Maggan said:
			
		

> What does that mean in numbers downloaded from RPGnow? 1000 downloads? 10 000? Just trying to gauge the amount of interest.




Trying to answer the question without threadjacking too badly...

I'm told that RPGnow ranks are:

Copper: 51-100 
Silver: 101-250 
Electrum: 251-500 
Gold: 500-1000 
Platinum: 1000+ 

I noticed that OSRIC had gone silver after 19 days, but it was probably earlier.

Best guess is that we're getting about 10 downloads a day off the RPGnow site, compared to roughly 50 a day off the main OSRIC site.  There are about three other subsidiary sites and it's also appeared on peer-to-peer networks.

We think there are between 3,000 and 8,000 copies of OSRIC in circulation in total but that's really just an educated guess.  With a free download it's very hard to track.

This is very small potatoes by 3e's distribution figures, of course.


----------



## Hussar

> damage occurs to both groups regardless of what is inflicted.




That's a bit beyond English 101.  That flat out doesn't even make sense.  This isn't a case of the English being a little wordy, this is out right confusing.



> The only thing 3e did really well was to reverse some of the "plot" and "story" assumptions from 2e. You know, the railroady DragonLance-style plots which were written in "Chapters" and contained long sections called "When things go wrong" which told the DM how to return to the hackneyed and formulaic progression of events which were supposed to happen when, inevitably, some bored player tried to exercise a bit of free will.
> 
> Those assumptions weren't there in early 1e. They crept in during what I call 1.5e -- the modules from 1983 and on started to take the onus away from the DM to create a proper game environment for the players to explore. Instead, the DM was supposed to tell the players what to explore, in what order.




I'd mostly agree with most of the latter half of that quote, except for the "only thing" bit at the beginning.  

The question was asked and it still hasn't been addressed:  What can I do in 1e that I cannot do in 3e?  If the game is so different then there must be things I can do in 1e that I can't do in 3e.  Comparing D&D to Vampire, for instance, there's a number of things D&D does better - rein in powergaming comes to mind right off the bat.  It's pretty much impossible in any version of D&D to make uber characters at chargen.  In Vampire it's rediculously easy.  In fact, that's balanced by the idea that people who play Vampire are deliberately not going to try to powergame their characters.

Unlike many who've posted here, I welcomed 2e with open arms.  I was so sick and tired of fighting the rules in 1e, that when 2e came out, I leapt away from 1e.  Sure, 1e had great adventures, but, IMO, that's all it had.  Mechanically it was very difficult for me to work with.  Poorly laid out, frequently incomprehensible, and with a massive powercreep between Dragon and Unearthed Arcana, the idea that 2e was going to clean up the mechanics and streamline play made me a very happy camper.

Heck, I resisted going to 3e for quite a while because I was pretty content with 2e mechanically.  It wasn't until I sat in on a 3e game and started reading some of the PHB that I realized that 3e had taken all the house rules and whatnot that I'd culled from Dragon and wherever else, buffed them up to a nice gleeming shine and made them better.  And then it gave me about fifteen new goodies on top.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Hussar said:
			
		

> The question was asked and it still hasn't been addressed:  What can I do in 1e that I cannot do in 3e?  If the game is so different then there must be things I can do in 1e that I can't do in 3e.




1.  Run a game for a dozen players without your brains dribbling out of your ears.
2.  Resolve a melee involving nine player characters, twenty-two henchmen and seven summoned monsters on one side -v- a dozen giants with a shaman, thirty-five worgs and a cave bear on the other, in less than about two years.
3.  Prepare an adventure on a single sheet of graph paper in twenty minutes, and expect to get many hours' play out of it.
4.  When the players walk off the map you prepared, generate the surrounding terrain and encounters using random tables, and get results that make sense.
5.  Let the player characters actually fight a dragon.


----------



## cildarith

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> 1.  Run a game for a dozen players without your brains dribbling out of your ears.
> 2.  Resolve a melee involving nine player characters, twenty-two henchmen and seven summoned monsters on one side -v- a dozen giants with a shaman, thirty-five worgs and a cave bear on the other, in less than about two years.
> 3.  Prepare an adventure on a single sheet of graph paper in twenty minutes, and expect to get many hours' play out of it.
> 4.  When the players walk off the map you prepared, generate the surrounding terrain and encounters using random tables, and get results that make sense.
> 5.  Let the player characters actually fight a dragon.




Nice list.

6. Create a 10th level character in less than 5 minutes.
7. Create a party of 10th level characters in less than 15 minutes
8. Place the stat blocks for 9 player characters, 22 henchmen, 7 summoned monsters, 12 giants, a shaman, 35 worgs, and a cave bear on one piece of paper (and you'll still have enough room for the map)


----------



## Kishin

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> 1.  Run a game for a dozen players without your brains dribbling out of your ears.
> 2.  Resolve a melee involving nine player characters, twenty-two henchmen and seven summoned monsters on one side -v- a dozen giants with a shaman, thirty-five worgs and a cave bear on the other, in less than about two years.
> 3.  Prepare an adventure on a single sheet of graph paper in twenty minutes, and expect to get many hours' play out of it.
> 4.  When the players walk off the map you prepared, generate the surrounding terrain and encounters using random tables, and get results that make sense.
> 5.  Let the player characters actually fight a dragon.




2, 4 and 5 are all doable. 1 is potentially doable, so long as the party is under say, 5th level.  I can't speak to 3, as that's simply not how I play D&D.



			
				cildarith said:
			
		

> 6. Create a 10th level character in less than 5 minutes.
> 7. Create a party of 10th level characters in less than 15 minutes
> 8. Place the stat blocks for 9 player characters, 22 henchmen, 7 summoned monsters, 12 giants, a shaman, 35 worgs, and a cave bear on one piece of paper (and you'll still have enough room for the map)




6 and 7 result from the lack of options available to higher level PCs in 1E as compared to 3E. Personally, I think the fact that well over 75% of 1E characters of equal level and identical are mechanically identical except for things like spell choice (which is even debatable) and magical items makes things very, very dull, but that's getting into the realm of opinion.

I suppose if I really wanted to split hairs, I could say that a 3E GM could generate a party of 10th level adventurers using elite arrays and the examples provided in the DMG just as quickly, but again, that's splitting hairs.

Also, I want to see the piece of paper used in 8. If for no other reason than that it would be full of _awesome._


----------



## Numion

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> 1.  Run a game for a dozen players without your brains dribbling out of your ears.
> 2.  Resolve a melee involving nine player characters, twenty-two henchmen and seven summoned monsters on one side -v- a dozen giants with a shaman, thirty-five worgs and a cave bear on the other, in less than about two years.
> 3.  Prepare an adventure on a single sheet of graph paper in twenty minutes, and expect to get many hours' play out of it.
> 4.  When the players walk off the map you prepared, generate the surrounding terrain and encounters using random tables, and get results that make sense.
> 5.  Let the player characters actually fight a dragon.




Dunno about 1 and 2 since I've never tried. 3 I've done at lower levels. 4 just sounds weird - I'd not do it even if I could. I might throw random encounters, but random maps? 5 I've done very many times.

EDIT: I could start a similar list with the editions reversed, but it just seems like a pissing contest.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Numion said:
			
		

> EDIT: I could start a similar list with the editions reversed, but it just seems like a pissing contest.




Eh, I posted in response to a specific question.  But I'll bet you a billion dollars you can't post anything that 3e permits while 1e doesn't.

(Sucker bet.  1e explicitly assumes a DM who isn't afraid to tinker with the rules.)


----------



## The Shaman

Hussar said:
			
		

> Except for the fact that a number of those same "NPC's" were pre-gens intended for the players to play.  Take the Heroes of the Lance as a prime example.  Four fighter types in the original 8 characters and 3 of the 4 had 18 percentile strengths.



You're basing this criticism on _Dragonlance_ pregenerated player characters? First, those are "PCs," not "NPCs" in any use of the term with which I'm familiar. Second, it's _Dragonlance_, an epic setting with characters to match. Third, generating a 17 or an 18 using the methods for chargen described in the 1e _AD&D DMG_ isn't that surprising, and contrary to your earlier assertion, it's fully supported by the rules.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> And, thank you for pretty much making my point for me.  Why the heck should that be written like that and how could anyone possibly defend that as good game design?



I picked out eight rules quotations to (how do I put this delicately?) respond to your misapprehensions about a number of 1e rules, and you pick one as representative of the entire game?

Gary Gygax was writing to an audience that read the authors and works I cited above, as well as Leiber, Howard, Lovecraft, Haggard, Burroughs, _et cetera_. His evocative language maps to the game's source material. IMO this is why so many gamers write fondly about "1e flavor": because reading the rule books felt like reading a fantasy novel, not a tech manual.

If you believe that 3e has somehow done away with rules that are difficult to follow, you are of course welcome to your opinion, but in response I direct you to the ENWorld _D&D_ rules forum.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> As far as dwarves hating elves and vice versa - one group lives in large forests and the other lives under mountains.  They don't even share the same real estate.  How often could they actually come into conflict?  This was only there because of Tolkein.



First off, they don't hate one another, per 1e _AD&D PHB_, p. 18 - both races reserve hatred for half-orcs. Second, dwarves cut down trees in large numbers - it's where charcoal comes from to operate forges and smelters. They also divert streams to run mills, pump groundwater out of mines, and dump mine tailings. All of these practices affect their relationship with elves. (And since when do hills and mountains lack forests?) Third, so what if the relationship between elves and dwarves was inspired by _LotR_? The magic system was inspired by Jack Vance, the alignment system by Michael Moorcock - what's your point, exactly?

Could you play a game in which elves and dwarves were bestest buddies? Of course - it's always been the province of the dungeon master to use the tools the game provides to create a distinctive setting. _Dragonlance_ and the Forgotten Realms were both someone's _D&D_ campaigns before they were published settings, yes? Can we agree that both dungeon masters took liberties with the canon descriptions of _D&D_ races?







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> ...what about Howard, Doyle and Burroughs, none of which were high literature, dense or difficult to understand?  Or should we simply ignore those inspirations?



No, no more than you've overlooked Lord Dunsany or Sir Thomas Malory.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Ok, now that I've stirred the pot sufficiently...



Stirring the pot? I thought it was a series of mispprehensions concerning 1e, based on fuzzy recollection and incomplete knowledge of the rules.


----------



## Flexor the Mighty!

MerricB said:
			
		

> He didn't. I seem to remember he was petitioned to include them (along with the Psionics rules) by well-meaning friends.
> 
> 
> 
> Funny, they're there in 1e. (NPC in 1e, PC in 1e+UA).
> 
> More seriously, I have my own restrictions on 3e choices when I run it to fit the style of campaign I want to run. There are certainly assumptions in D&D that you live with, and there are others you can modify. (So, no barbarians, monks or half-orcs in my 3e Ulek campaign).
> 
> Cheers!




Doh!  I meant Wizards.


----------



## WayneLigon

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Eh, I posted in response to a specific question.  But I'll bet you a billion dollars you can't post anything that 3e permits while 1e doesn't.
> (Sucker bet.  1e explicitly assumes a DM who isn't afraid to tinker with the rules.)




It also assumes that you won't stray very far from the fold, either, or 'you're not playing D&D'.

There are whole huge reams of things you are prohibited from doing in 1e if you simply follow the rules as written, while in 3e, doing the same thing, very little is. Man, where to start? Wizards using swords. Human wizards making Boots of Elvenkind. Dwarves becoming 15th level wizards.

Both editions assume you're going to tinker; 3E just allows you a look under the hood so you can tinker better and without as great a chance of unbalancing the whole thing. Certainly 1E let you tinker: and gave you absolutely no direction or suggestions on how to do that.


----------



## Imperialus

wow... this is a fascinating thread.  I praticularly enjoyed Merric's breakdown of the evolution of D&D.

Now... with regards to the OP, I must admit I'm firmly planted on the fence.  1E was a bizarre amalgamation of house rules, different systems, and while my experience with it is extremely limited (I started playing in 90 and therefore 2nd ed) I have played a few adventures with 1e.  I found it quite confusing but that is more likely because I didn't dedicate the time to understanding the rules the same way I did with 2e and I kept confusing the two editions.  I can see however the appeal of 1e.  It has an incredibly evocative writing style and I often find myself reading the books for pure enjoyment, something I have never done with 3e.  That said I do prefer playing 3.X rather than any previous editions.

I find that recently at least 3e has become too bloated.  When I DM I allow the 3 core, along with the complete books, UA, PHBII and DMGII (though complete mage is still up in the air).  If someone has their heart set on playing something from another splat book I may include it but the default answer is no.  Players also have to double check with me if they create anything that isn't strict core.  It's more to prevent characters that have a very different concept than the game I plan on running to than to prevent min-maxing but sometimes that enters the mix too.  By doing this I find that it keeps the game manageable and still allows players to develop characters as they see fit though I may put the kibosh on some of the more specialized classes (such as the hunter of the dead) if I plan on running a campaign that they just don't fit in.

I’m not a good enough rules lawyer to get into the nitty gritty comparisons between editions like comparative power levels so I guess I’ll just say that regardless of edition D&D is what you make it.  It doesn’t matter if you are playing 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, or XPe, the possibilities are only limited by the collective imagination of the gaming group, rules could and can be tweaked to suit just about any campaign, the actual mechanics of the basic rule set providing a guide, or rough outline to see the groups goal (to have fun) realized.  How that goal is achieved is as varied as there are groups out there.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Certainly 1E let you tinker: and gave you absolutely no direction or suggestions on how to do that.




Indeed.  I prefer my freedom to come without direction or suggestions.  You may feel differently.


----------



## Keldryn

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> McDonalds sells more than Licks because McDondalds takes into account EVERYTHING about the hamburger (including, notably, cost, time, availability, and advertising), and thus makes a hamburger that is better suited to the majority of people because of the qualities it has. It sacrifices taste, sure, but people obviously don't care about taste or it wouldn't be successful. A better burger isn't just about taste -- apparently, people are willing to eat cardboard at 59 cents when they can demand it in about 30 seconds. A good hamburger will take that into account, as McDonald's does.




Bloody hell, now I'm craving McDonald's for lunch.  Despite how it doesn't really taste that amazing, and that I usually regret it about half an hour later.



> In other words, don't tell me what 3e does wrong, tell me what the other editions did *right*, and tell me specifically, in ways that are in the rules themselves, not in your own experience or just from your DM style.




I definitely favour the 3.x rules over any other edition of the game, but one thing that always comes to mind as something that I thought the 1e rules did right is that spellcasters had a much stronger flavour than they do in subsequent editions.  

Illusionists weren't just Magic-Users specialized in Illusion/Phantasm spells.  They had their own unique spell list, with many spells that were not available to basic Magic-Users, ever.  Spells like Phantasmal Force were 1st level spells for Illusionists, but were 3rd level spells for Magic-Users.  2nd and 3rd Editions made the Illusionist extremely bland and lame, and also kind of sucked some of the flavour out of the Mage/Wizard as well by giving them a bloated spell list completely lacking in any sort of theme... just a list of all of the arcane spells in the game.

The same thing happened with Clerics and Druids.  Several spells that were exclusive to Druids in 1st Edition ended up on the generic Priest spell list in 2nd Edition and were actually not available to Druids because they belonged to spheres that Druids didn't have access to.

3rd Edition definitely improved upon 2nd in this respect, giving each class a customized spell list.  But there is still a lot of crossover, Wizards are bland in their ability to cast pretty much anything, and specialist Wizards taste like rice cakes.

A lot of 1st Edition's restrictions placed on characters of specific classes, races, etc were boneheaded, unfair, and made little sense, but they did carry a strong flavour that hasn't always survived into later editons.


----------



## Lanefan

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> There are whole huge reams of things you are prohibited from doing in 1e if you simply follow the rules as written, while in 3e, doing the same thing, very little is. Man, where to start? Wizards using swords. Human wizards making Boots of Elvenkind. Dwarves becoming 15th level wizards.



Many of those prohibitions were, I suspect, for flavour reasons...the no-Dwarf-wizards is a good example, same with the Elvenkind items are only made by Elves example (why would Elves allow the knowledge to escape?)...while some - like the no-swords-for-wizards - were to keep the classes distinct and separate.  You're a wizard?  Then manual combat is Not Your Job.

3e tends much more to allow everyone to do everything, blurring the class definitions and resulting in many more jack-of-all-trades PC's...Gestalt being the next step on this evolution.  PC parties were big in 1e mainly to have all the roles covered, with a bit of backup, and for various reasons I prefer this to the 4-character 3e strike force. 

Lanefan


----------



## JRRNeiklot

Kishin said:
			
		

> 6 and 7 result from the lack of options available to higher level PCs in 1E as compared to 3E. Personally, I think the fact that well over 75% of 1E characters of equal level and identical are mechanically identical except for things like spell choice (which is even debatable) and magical items makes things very, very dull, but that's getting into the realm of opinion.
> 
> [/I]




Hmmm.  Suppose I put 2 humans dressed similarly in a room.  They must be identical, right?  Nevermind one is Albert Einstein and the other Babe Ruth.  They are identical.  Albert Pujols and David Eckstein?  Identical.  They both use the same type of bat.  I've never understood this fallacy.  My characters in ANY edition were different.  They had different goals, diffrent fears, different personalities.  George the Dragon slayer charged at the drop of a hat, Shujo cautiosly surveyed the battlefield and chose his battles carefully.  Some revered nature, some would cut down an acre just to find the right sapling for a long bow.  If mechanics are the only way you can tell your characters apart, you're not playing an rpg of any kind.


----------



## Numion

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Eh, I posted in response to a specific question.  But I'll bet you a billion dollars you can't post anything that 3e permits while 1e doesn't.
> 
> (Sucker bet.  1e explicitly assumes a DM who isn't afraid to tinker with the rules.)




Gary had a strange way of showing that. 1E might've allowed that, but then, by Gary, it wouldnt've been (A)D&D.

Actually I wouldn't start the list, because the first generation "3E is not D&D" (in year 2000, IIRC) threads we're based on the premise that _too much_ was possible with 3E.

Naah .. I know I'll regret this, but I can't help myself:

1) GELATINOUS CUBE NINJA OF THE CRESCENT MOON!!!111!!eleven!!


----------



## Keldryn

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I have a fundamental problem with the philosophy that it is "unfair" to inflict any form of lasting damage on a character. Characters need to feel that there is a genuine risk when adventuring, otherwise what is the point? You might as well be earning your GP through Craft and Perform checks.




The risk of dying in combat, getting offed by a trap, or losing a treasured possession are all genuine risks of lasting damage that don't seem unfair to me.  I don't think people are insisting that it is unfair to inflict any form of lasting damage on a character.  I do think it's unfair to inflict severe and lasting damage on a character when it is the result of a single unlucky die roll or any other essentially random or arbitrary event.



> Short of a TPK, the ease of Raise dead spells, and the fact that the only penalty you take for dying is the loss of a level - which you can earn back as normal (at an accelerated rate, as you are now 1 level behind the others, which the CR system will reward you for).




Losing a level and being one level behind the rest of the party -- even when you can earn that level faster than you did the first time -- is hardly what I'd call a reward.  The loss of a level represents a supposed average of 3 or 4 playing sessions, and losing a couple play sessions of advancement isn't something to just brush off.



> Characters see a Rust Monster - suddenly the fighter thinks that his Keen Vorpal Ghost Touch Flaming double sword might be destroyed. i.e. he feels a sense of *risk*. Not to mention the fact that I think the system has been set up to make characters waaay to reliant on their equipment in 3.X.




Characters see... any monster powerful enough to defeat them... there is a sense of risk that they will be killed.  Even if they aren't killed but are captured, they will likely lose most of their powerful equipment, at least for a time.  The sense of a real risk certainly needs to be there to keep the level of tension and excitement going, but a lucky hit from a monster that destroys a weapon that you fought hard to earn does feel a lot like the DM going "neener neener, you lost your swo-ord!"

It's kind of like when the party Wizard researches or finds an invisibility spell and then suddenly all of the major opponents have magic items that let them see invisible creatures.



> What my ramblings are getting at is the mindset that thinks that inflicting a TPK is fine (within the hallowed halls of CR, of course), as it within the "spririt of the rules", but taking someone's shiny magic armor and weapon is grossly unfair, and has rendered that character now unlayable.




Taking someone's shiny magic armor or weapon isn't grossly unfair in and of itself, but if it's taken in a way that boils down to an unlucky die roll or two... that's cheap.  Especially if it target's a classes primary function and severely cripples their effectiveness.  If you're going to cripple one party member, it's better to cripple all of them so that the one player doesn't get left with nothing to do.  ;-)



> Call me an old stick in the mud, but "back in the day" when you knew that dying meant, at the very least, the loss of 1 point of Constitution, and that level drains from undead could well be permanent if you didn't have a high level Cleric handy, bred a real sense of risk and adventure.




I don't feel any less sense of risk and adventure without a permanent Con loss or permanent level drains from undead.  Permanent, debilitating losses are not intrinsically unfair, but I do believe that they should be inflicted sparingly, and very rarely from what is essentially a random or meaningless encounter without any reward appropriate for the severity of the losses at risk.


----------



## Glyfair

Numion said:
			
		

> Gary had a strange way of showing that. 1E might've allowed that, but then, by Gary, it wouldnt've been (A)D&D.




Admittedly, that was a while after AD&D was released.  Gary was trying to avoid the problems when people were showing up for conventions to play D&D and finding they had to deal with house rules they weren't familiar with.  Often there were pages of rules changes when you were just playing in a single scenario.  More often than not you didn't find out about the DMs house rules until it came up in the game ("no, I don't allow magic missiles to automatically hit").

That was a big barrier to the game at that time, and was another black eye to the idea of playing in a convention game.  To a lesser extent, it happened when players moved to a new area and were trying to find a new D&D game.  They were invited to play in a "D&D" game only to find so much was changed it wasn't really D&D.


----------



## Keldryn

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> Too bad for you, then.
> 
> And he was working at TSR while the WSG and DSG were in development.




Err, in what way were those two books "2nd Edition?"  Gary may have been working at TSR when then WSG and DSG were in development, but I don't think that what became 2nd Edition was in development in 1985.

I remember in early 2nd Edition previews, they talked about how the original idea for 2nd Edition was basically just to incorporate errata, clean up the layout, put in some new art, and change the covers.

Mechanically, the WSG and DSG weren't any more 2nd Editon than was Oriental Adventures.  Nothing in those texts actually reflect 2nd Edition rules.

Now, Dragonlance Adventures (1987?) -- that was clearly written with 2nd Edition in mind, despite no mention being made on the cover.  So was Greyhawk Adventures, although that did mention "compatible with both 1st and 2nd Edition" in a little spot on the front cover.  The Greyhawk book was, obviously, more in line with what showed up in 2nd Edition in 1989, although there are some differences.


----------



## Keldryn

Lanefan said:
			
		

> The introduction of Cavalier was also the introduction of having stats increase by any means as a simple function of level.  Paladins got it too, as they were dragged under the Cavalier umbrella at that point.  Why they didn't give it to *every* class mystifies me still, though it would have required a re-think of how exceptional strength worked for Fighters and the good Colonel has said in another thread this wasn't up for consideration.




At that point, it was pretty much only _wishes_ or effects from an item such as the _deck of many things_ that would provide a permanent bonus to an ability score, wasn't it?  1e really seemed to go out of its way to prevent characters from gaining any permanent ability score bonuses, and then Unearthed Arcana went and gave it to Cavaliers and Paladins.


----------



## Keldryn

MerricB said:
			
		

> I agree. In fact, one of the great weaknesses of 3e is that hordes of low-level opponents are rarely a threat - and, IMO, they too quickly become obsolete. (OTOH, I don't know if 30 orcs would even threaten a 10th level AD&D party).




From my experience in either edition of AD&D, not usually.  Unless the party has lost all of the magical equipment and/or the orcs are out of range and behind cover and the PCs can't get to the orcs or run away.  Obviously, if the DM wants to make them deadly, he'll find a way to do it.  But stick 30 orcs straight out of the MM into a big room to fight toe-to-toe with a 10th level party and lock the door, I don't see the party taking many casualties.

One of my favourite aspects of 3e is how it provides easy guidelines on how to "level up" a monster type.  Of course you could do it in 1e and 2e as well -- I'd often keep using orcs as major enemies throughout a campaign by giving them fighter levels.  But 3e gives you more of structure for doing so, with less of a reliance on winging it.  It was always relatively easy to scale up hit points or damage, but when you start getting into effectiveness of special attacks and such, it wasn't quite as straightforward.


----------



## I'm A Banana

First of all, the point about 1e offering "more danger" in the form of more save-or-die "gotcha" monsters is well taken. It's true, 1e characters feared more instant, irrevocable, horrible harm than their 3e counterparts. However, this does not translate at all into "safety," because 3e characters still fear regular and well-earned KO's, especially at higher levels. Resurrection is there for a reason -- people die. I am willing to submit that save-or-die monsters and/or "gotcha" monsters are less fun than long-running, persistant challenges. After all, do you have more fun when your evil wizard villain gets to spend a few rounds casting wicked magic at the PC's, or when he dies because of a single botched save in the second round? It works the other way, too -- people have more fun when their hero gets to spend a few round vallaintly crusading against the wicked beast, rather than simply walking into a room and dying. 

Now, characters do not fear walking into a room and dying, making the game more heroic, and more people have more fun playing heroes than getting killed, meaning the game is better suited, in a Darwinian sense, than it once was. 


And then...what kind of propoganda is this below? 



> 1. Run a game for a dozen players without your brains dribbling out of your ears.




Done in 3e. You probably see this most often at conventions, but I've seen it happen in people's houses. Most don't care to get to that level for more than a one-shot or month-long anyway, since getting 12 people's schedules to coordinate for more than one night is an excersize in scheduling wizardry that will make your brains dribble long before the rules will.



> 2. Resolve a melee involving nine player characters, twenty-two henchmen and seven summoned monsters on one side -v- a dozen giants with a shaman, thirty-five worgs and a cave bear on the other, in less than about two years.




Done in 3e. You need some reasonably experienced players and a pretty simplistic battlefield (which means taking away a lot of interesting, but confusing, tactical options), and I wouldn't try it at high level with many combat possibilities, but I've seen similar things done in the aforementioned massive games.

Though, again, one wonders of what use these massive combats and huge player pools are...I'd much rather have three DMs with four players each doing their own thing, and I'd much rather have a small band of heroes against a band of great villains. Which is part of why I don't do those massive games anymore.

Still, it's been done.



> 3. Prepare an adventure on a single sheet of graph paper in twenty minutes, and expect to get many hours' play out of it.




I don't know how you can possibly say that when, just a few pages ago, I was advocating "15 minute adventure design." Blatantly untrue as anyone following along will know.



> 4. When the players walk off the map you prepared, generate the surrounding terrain and encounters using random tables, and get results that make sense.




3e tells you how to craft an encounter table. 3e can roll randomly for your dungeons. Perhaps their is a little more work, and that's certainly a point earlier editions have -- I'd like to see "randomly generated worlds". I suspect, however, I'm in the minority on this, as many DMs enjoy spending the time crafting the world themselves, and so the rules would be largely wasted. So I certainly won't claim that 3e is flawed for not including something that would be useless to most DMs.



> 5. Let the player characters actually fight a dragon.




Done. All the time. Again, blatantly false.



> 6. Create a 10th level character in less than 5 minutes.




True enough, but the alternative is "all 10th level characters look the same." Given that alternative, I'll stick with time-intensive modes of character creation, especially now that there's a large support net, both online and in the books, to make an interesting one.

This is a very valid criticism, however, and definately something 3e could learn from earlier editions.



> 7. Create a party of 10th level characters in less than 15 minutes




This is really the same problem, so I veto it getting it's own number.   



> 8. Place the stat blocks for 9 player characters, 22 henchmen, 7 summoned monsters, 12 giants, a shaman, 35 worgs, and a cave bear on one piece of paper (and you'll still have enough room for the map)




Again, that's the same problem, so it doesn't get it's own number, either.


----------



## Numion

Glyfair said:
			
		

> Admittedly, that was a while after AD&D was released.  Gary was trying to avoid the problems when people were showing up for conventions to play D&D and finding they had to deal with house rules they weren't familiar with.  Often there were pages of rules changes when you were just playing in a single scenario.  More often than not you didn't find out about the DMs house rules until it came up in the game ("no, I don't allow magic missiles to automatically hit").
> 
> That was a big barrier to the game at that time, and was another black eye to the idea of playing in a convention game.  To a lesser extent, it happened when players moved to a new area and were trying to find a new D&D game.  They were invited to play in a "D&D" game only to find so much was changed it wasn't really D&D.




So come again, was AD&D 'tinkerability' a good or a bad thing? Gary himself saw it as a bad thing. Maybe he would've done a different 2nd ed, had he not been booted


----------



## Keldryn

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Having said that, I don't agree that the writing is too hard to understand.  It's aimed at a literate and intelligent reader; those who failed English 101 shouldn't be playing D&D anyway.




That strikes me as an awfully elitist attitude.  What about people who are too young to have taken English 101 (not to be taking you extremely literally, but I assume you get my point)?  Should aspiring 10 year-old gamers be excluded because the original author wrote to a generally college-educated adult audience?  What about gamers for whom English is not their first language?



			
				PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> The only thing 3e did really well was to reverse some of the "plot" and "story" assumptions from 2e.  You know, the railroady DragonLance-style plots which were written in "Chapters" and contained long sections called "When things go wrong" which told the DM how to return to the hackneyed and formulaic progression of events which were _supposed_ to happen when, inevitably, some bored player tried to exercise a bit of free will.




Was there much of this in either 1e or 2e, other than the Dragonlance modules and Forgotten Realms modules based on the novels?  Admittedly one of the worst offenders had to be the A1-4 series of modules, where the ending of A3 required the party to be defeated and stripped of all items and spells before beginning A4 -- talk about railroading.  Those certainly weren't representative of all early 1e modules, of course.  



			
				PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> What does this tell us?  It tells us that a lot of people buy the "official" version of D&D.  It tells us nothing about which is the better system.




Yes, the brand name of "Dungeons & Dragons" will probably always sell far more than any other RPG product, regardless of the contents.  To the world at large, role-playing game equals Dungeons & Dragons.


----------



## jcfiala

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> 1.  Run a game for a dozen players without your brains dribbling out of your ears.



I've never had a campaign with twelve players, but I did have one with eight, and my ears seem fine. 


> 2.  Resolve a melee involving nine player characters, twenty-two henchmen and seven summoned monsters on one side -v- a dozen giants with a shaman, thirty-five worgs and a cave bear on the other, in less than about two years.



Two years?  I bet we could resolve that in less than two years.  You got cash?


> 3.  Prepare an adventure on a single sheet of graph paper in twenty minutes, and expect to get many hours' play out of it.



Hmm.  I don't know if I ever did that with AD&D, honestly, but I think I could manage it.  Am I allowed to write page references to the MM in the paper?  Am I allowed to prepare this on the computer?  Am I allowed to use both sides?


> 4.  When the players walk off the map you prepared, generate the surrounding terrain and encounters using random tables, and get results that make sense.



Hmm...  I'm not that interested in random generation, so it's not really something I've looked into a lot.







> 5.  Let the player characters actually fight a dragon.




What do you mean, particularly, by 'let'?  I've had my players face at least one dragon since 3.0's come out...


----------



## jcfiala

Numion said:
			
		

> So come again, was AD&D 'tinkerability' a good or a bad thing? Gary himself saw it as a bad thing. Maybe he would've done a different 2nd ed, had he not been booted




AD&D Tinkerability was good for home games, and bad for convention games, I think is the point.  Generally people have house rules to fix what they dislike in the system, but I don't think anybody would insist on using those rules if they were running a game for strangers at GenCon.


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> umm, what about Howard



As much as I enjoy his stories, I would hardly call Robert E Howard's stories "high literature"..."pulp fiction", perhaps...  

[edit]Oops, I read that totally wrong, that IS what you were saying...sorry   [/edit]


----------



## Keldryn

Hussar said:
			
		

> Unlike many who've posted here, I welcomed 2e with open arms.  I was so sick and tired of fighting the rules in 1e, that when 2e came out, I leapt away from 1e.  Sure, 1e had great adventures, but, IMO, that's all it had.  Mechanically it was very difficult for me to work with.  Poorly laid out, frequently incomprehensible, and with a massive powercreep between Dragon and Unearthed Arcana, the idea that 2e was going to clean up the mechanics and streamline play made me a very happy camper.




I was very much the same.  I'd been playing for about 3 years when 2nd Edition was released, but I'd already accumulated most of the AD&D hardcovers, as well as having gone through the Basic/Expert/Companion/Masters D&D sets.  I was very much looking forward to having a basic set of three core books again, without lugging around UA, WSG, DSG, OA, and various Dragon Magazines for "the good bits."  The big laugh was on me once The Complete Fighter's Handbook and its progeny started coming out though...

2e cleaned up the layout of 1e, which had always been a point of criticism for me.  A lot of rules that should have been in the PHB were in the DMG.  The 1e DMG was written in a rather stream-of-consciousness fashion, and looking up a specific rule was often a chore.  IIRC, it was going into detailed descriptions of diseases and mental afflictions within the first couple dozen pages... WTF?  2e streamlined some of the more cumbersome aspects of 1e and got rid of some of the mechanically inconsistent, overpowered, or just plain useless character options: cavaliers, barbarians, drow as written in UA, "roll 9d6 drop the 6 lowest for Strength...," monks, psionics, the fighter/thief/druid-but-not-really-now-actually-a-bard, comeliness, etc.  Many of these returned in other forms, but at the very least they didn't have the same off-the-wall mechanics that they originally did.  

2e lifted some of the 1e PHB's overly-restrictive race/class options, as well as the ridiculously low level limits on a lot of non-human characters (1e PHB: elf fighters could be 5th level unless they had a 17 or 18 strength, at which point they could advance to 6th or even 7th level!).  2e introduced a lot more opportunities to customize individual characters: specialization in one school of magic, thief skills were no longer set percentages per level, cleric weapons/armour/spells by diety, etc).  THAC0 was generally faster to work with than looking up numbers on class-specific attack matrices -- and took up less space on the DM screen too.

Overall, it was a big improvement.  Yeah, a few things were lost along the way, but after 2e came out I never went back to 1e, other than to mine a few ideas here and there.  The 2e DMG was a pretty lousy book though. Other than looking up magic item descriptions, it didn't see much use at my game table.  Nor did it provide much useful advice for new DMs or for campaign/world building.

2e eventually lost me under the bloat of a dozen PHBR supplements and the broken Player's Option books.  Well, and an overall shift away from gaming and towards... chasing girls.  

3e brought me back because it addressed nearly all of my annoyances with earlier editions, replacing most of the rigid "magic users cannot wear armour" type of restrictions with consequences such as "magic users aren't proficient in armour but if they do wear it they suffer an x% chance of spell failure when casting a spell with a somatic component."  Of course you could always house rule these things in 1e and 2e, but 3e had most of this built in -- it still encouraged the classic archetypes, but it didn't just outright forbid anything outside of it.  I found the game to be a lot more logical and consistent than either previous edition.  And the universal d20 resolution mechanic was a godsend.   In earlier editions, the successes of character abilities were determined by the roll of a d20 but you want to roll high, the roll of a d20 but you want to roll low, a d6 roll, a d10 roll, a d100 roll...   1d20 + modifiers vs a difficulty number, and you want to roll high.   It's not so much that the different types of dice rolled for non-weapon proficiencies, initiative, thief skills, detecting secret doors, and the like made it too difficult -- eventually players would get the hang of it and remember.  But it's just so much more elegant and consistent to use the same mechanic for (almost) everything, and it's a snap for new players to pick up.

I was sold on 3e before the books even game out, from the spy reports that appeared on this site.  1e certainly wasn't broken and unplayable -- I had a lot of fun with it, and so did a few million other people.  It wasn't impossible to learn at the age of 12 or 13 either.  Would I want to play a 1e game now when I could play a 3e game?  Not a chance.  Would I recommend 1e over 3e to an aspiring gamer, based on how clear and consistent I feel the rules are presented in each respective game?  Never.


----------



## Keldryn

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Gary Gygax was writing to an audience that read the authors and works I cited above, as well as Leiber, Howard, Lovecraft, Haggard, Burroughs, _et cetera_. His evocative language maps to the game's source material. IMO this is why so many gamers write fondly about "1e flavor": because reading the rule books felt like reading a fantasy novel, not a tech manual.




Fair enough... except we're not reading a fantasy novel, we are reading a rulebook for a game.  And the primary purpose of a book containing rules is to convey those rules in a clear and consistent manner.  Of course there is nothing wrong with a rulebook containing evocative language, so long as it isn't at the expense of the clarity of the information being communicated.  And I would argue that Gygax's language often obscured the clarity of the information.

The reader's familiarity -- or lack thereof -- with fantasy literature should not be a factor in how the rules are expressed in writing.  Not having read the "classics" of fantasy literature should not be an entry barrier for the new gamer.  Sure, being well-read in the genre should by all means enhance one's enjoyment of the game.  But it should never be a requirement to play the game or understand the rules.  Not everyone gets into D&D through a love of fantasy literature, and in fact many people get into fantasy literature through their love of D&D (and not just crappy D&D-licensed novels).


----------



## Ourph

Keldryn said:
			
		

> Mechanically, the WSG and DSG weren't any more 2nd Editon than was Oriental Adventures.  Nothing in those texts actually reflect 2nd Edition rules.




Technically, that's untrue on two counts.  First, Oriental Adventures was written by David "Zeb" Cook, who was also the primary author/editor of the 2nd Edition re-write of AD&D.  His influence can easily be seen in both products.  There are a lot of deviations from the 1e core rules in Oriental Adventures that mesh a lot more cleanly with the 2e rules than they do with the rules they were nominally meant to be compatible with.  Second, The WSG, DSG and Oriental Adventures all did their share to make Non-Weapon Proficiencies an integral part of the game - which is one of the biggest transitions in actual mechanics from original 1e core rules to the 2e core rules.  The combo of OA/WSG/DSG was essentially a 1.5th edition that paved the way for 2e in the same way that 2e's Skills & Powers books were a 2.5th edition that paved the way for 3e.

Whether you want to label them 1e, 1.5e or "2e in all but name" it's unquestionable that the later 1e hardbacks weren't just supplements to the core rules they were modifications of the core rules that changed some of the original approaches to areas of the game.  Contrast this with some of the "Wilderness" 3.5e books which work seamlessly with the core rules and you'll see that there's definitely a distinction to be made.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Keldryn said:
			
		

> That strikes me as an awfully elitist attitude.  What about people who are too young to have taken English 101 (not to be taking you extremely literally, but I assume you get my point)?  Should aspiring 10 year-old gamers be excluded because the original author wrote to a generally college-educated adult audience?  What about gamers for whom English is not their first language?




Several answers.

First, yes, I'm an elitist.  What's the problem with that?  Hobbies aren't democratic; whether your hobby is golf or chess or fly fishing or RPGs, some people are just better suited to them than others.

I wouldn't advise a semi-literate person to play RPGs any more than I'd advise a blind person to take up clay pigeon shooting.  At the end of the day, almost everyone who has fun playing RPGs is on the high end of the intelligence curve and they're generally fairly articulate and well-educated.  And a lot of us are nerds, too.

I happen to be an elitist nerd.  

Second, I could read the AD&D DMG at the age of 10 and so could my friends.  You don't need a "college education."

Third, AD&D was published in several languages.


----------



## Thurbane

The Shaman said:
			
		

> IMO this is why so many gamers write fondly about "1e flavor": because reading the rule books felt like reading a fantasy novel, not a tech manual.



Actually, that's very true in my own case. I still remember thumbing though the 1E PHB which I managed to get cheap from a guy who retired from gaming. It's exactly as you say - I had a genuine sense of wonder when I was reading it. It held my interest the way a novel would.

With the 3.5PHB (I skipped 3E entirely, fortunately - *$cha-ching$*), it felt more like I was reading a Beginner's Guide to C++. The rules are so neatly set out, so structured, and so interwoven and airtight; coupled with that, there was no real "feeling" put into the writing that I could pick up on - everything is presented in totally factual and clinical terms.

It goes without saying that this is completely and totally a case of personal opinion. I should also point out that I was about 12 when I got the 1E PHB, and 33 when I got the 3.5 PHB, so I may be a lot more jaded these days.


----------



## Keldryn

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Many of those prohibitions were, I suspect, for flavour reasons...the no-Dwarf-wizards is a good example, same with the Elvenkind items are only made by Elves example (why would Elves allow the knowledge to escape?)...while some - like the no-swords-for-wizards - were to keep the classes distinct and separate.  You're a wizard?  Then manual combat is Not Your Job.




Sure they were there for flavour reasons.  But perhaps rigid prohibitions in the rules are not the best way to enforce those reasons.  I'm not sure why dwarves couldn't be wizards in early editions.  Sure, the archetype of the typical wizard with his staff and spellbook may not fit the dwarf, but all those magical dwarven weapons and armour had to come from somewhere.  Oh, yeah, right, dwarven clerics made all of them.    

Manual combat is certainly not the wizard's job... but his d4 hit points and crappy attack progression already illustrate this pretty well.  Does letting a wizard use a sword that does 1d8 damage instead of the staff's 1d6 suddenly make the wizard significantly more effective in hand to hand combat?  No.  And since they can't wear armour and cast spells at the same time (the effects vary from one edition to another), let the wizard use a 1d10 two-handed sword for all I care.  He's still going to get creamed if he gets in a toe-to-toe fight with any reasonably competent melee combatant.



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> 3e tends much more to allow everyone to do everything, blurring the class definitions and resulting in many more jack-of-all-trades PC's...Gestalt being the next step on this evolution.  PC parties were big in 1e mainly to have all the roles covered, with a bit of backup, and for various reasons I prefer this to the 4-character 3e strike force.




I disagree about allowing everyone to do everything.  3e rewards specialization quite heavily, especially when it comes to spellcasters.  1e and 2e double and triple class characters were true jacks-of-all-trades.  3e doesn't place the same rigid restrictions to one's particular class role that 1e and 2d do, but at the same time it very strongly encourages sticking to what you're really good at.  Even dabbling in 2 or 3 levels of another class can seriously inhibit your effectiveness in your primary class -- the extent to which this happens does vary from one class to the next, but is particularly harsh on full-progression spellcasters.

Gestalt isn't really part of the evolution.  It is explicitly presented as an option intended for smaller groups so that parties of 2 or 3 players can still cover all of the roles without relying on DM-provided NPCs (i.e. Cleric) to supplement them.

The archetypal 4-character 3e strike force exists because WOTC's research showed that the average size of a gaming group was four players and one DM.  A lot of adventures for 1e or B/X D&D suggest groups of 4-6 or 5-8 characters... which a lot of groups never have.  Three fighters, a cleric, a magic-user, and a thief, or whatever the typical suggestion was.  Much of 3e's design takes into account the ways in which the research suggested that the majority of gamers actually play the game.  There are still your four basic roles, no matter which edition of the game you are playing.


----------



## Keldryn

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Hmmm.  Suppose I put 2 humans dressed similarly in a room.  They must be identical, right?  Nevermind one is Albert Einstein and the other Babe Ruth.  They are identical.  Albert Pujols and David Eckstein?  Identical.  They both use the same type of bat.  I've never understood this fallacy.  My characters in ANY edition were different.  They had different goals, diffrent fears, different personalities.  George the Dragon slayer charged at the drop of a hat, Shujo cautiosly surveyed the battlefield and chose his battles carefully.  Some revered nature, some would cut down an acre just to find the right sapling for a long bow.  If mechanics are the only way you can tell your characters apart, you're not playing an rpg of any kind.




I believe the key word in his post was _mechanically_ identical.  Of course characters will have different personalities and goals, but that wasn't the issue being presented.  And two 9th-level human fighters in 1st edition will be mechanically identical, other than ability score bonuses for scores above 15 and a slightly different hit point total.  But that's it.  Pre-UA fighters didn't even get specialization, so the player doesn't get any choice as to how his fighter's abilities develop.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Keldryn said:
			
		

> I believe the key word in his post was _mechanically_ identical.  Of course characters will have different personalities and goals, but that wasn't the issue being presented.  And two 9th-level human fighters in 1st edition will be mechanically identical, other than ability score bonuses for scores above 15 and a slightly different hit point total.  But that's it.  Pre-UA fighters didn't even get specialization, so the player doesn't get any choice as to how his fighter's abilities develop.




Does this mean that chess is a boring game?  Because all the pieces are mechanically identical each time you play?


----------



## jcfiala

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Does this mean that chess is a boring game?  Because all the pieces are mechanically identical each time you play?




Chess pieces are not meant to represent people, and D&D characters are.  People, even in the same job, are different from each other in how well they can do different parts of their job.


----------



## Thurbane

Numion said:
			
		

> So come again, was AD&D 'tinkerability' a good or a bad thing? Gary himself saw it as a bad thing. Maybe he would've done a different 2nd ed, had he not been booted



As much as I respect Gary for being a fundamental part of creating my favorite hobby, I do not credit him as the "be all and end all" of 1E.

Houseruling and tinkering with rules to make them work better for yourself and your group is at the very heart of D&D, in any edition. I did it under 1E, and I do it under 3.5E. If Mr. Gygax has (had) a problem with me doing that with 1E, he can take a running jump at an ochre jelly for all I care!   

I just don't get all this 1E bashing backed up with "Gary sez!" anectdotes...


----------



## Lanefan

Keldryn said:
			
		

> At that point, it was pretty much only _wishes_ or effects from an item such as the _deck of many things_ that would provide a permanent bonus to an ability score, wasn't it?  1e really seemed to go out of its way to prevent characters from gaining any permanent ability score bonuses, and then Unearthed Arcana went and gave it to Cavaliers and Paladins.



I wouldn't say "prevent" so much as "make it very rare and special" to get a stat boost.  Several canned modules had stat boost items built in - _Lost Temple of Tharizdun_ and _Castle Amber_ are two I can think of off the top - and there were also the various Tomes, Librams, etc. that a DM could lob in to a treasury if one wasn't already there.

But yes, UA suddenly giving stat increments as a class ability to just 2 classes was a departure from the norm...and a welcome one in our group; we nigh-immediately gave it to everyone as a character ability.

Lanefan


----------



## Thurbane

Keldryn said:
			
		

> I believe the key word in his post was _mechanically_ identical.  Of course characters will have different personalities and goals, but that wasn't the issue being presented.  And two 9th-level human fighters in 1st edition will be mechanically identical, other than ability score bonuses for scores above 15 and a slightly different hit point total.  But that's it.  Pre-UA fighters didn't even get specialization, so the player doesn't get any choice as to how his fighter's abilities develop.



You're comparing apples and ornages here.

I will freely admit that 3.X allows for more _mechanical_ customisation of characters, but back in 1E, two characters of the same level were by no means clones. In fact, I would argue that the very same factor actually encouraged more development of character personality and identity roleplay-wise to make your character unique, rather than relying on a page of Feat, Skill and PrC stats and figures.

Not to say you can't roleplay just as well in 3.X, before anyone jumps back on that argument again...


----------



## Lanefan

Keldryn said:
			
		

> Sure they were there for flavour reasons.  But perhaps rigid prohibitions in the rules are not the best way to enforce those reasons.  I'm not sure why dwarves couldn't be wizards in early editions.  Sure, the archetype of the typical wizard with his staff and spellbook may not fit the dwarf, but all those magical dwarven weapons and armour had to come from somewhere.  Oh, yeah, right, dwarven clerics made all of them.



Dwarves had a small amount of magic resistance in old editions, if memory serves...as did Hobbits.  Having such beings able to be wizards didn't make much sense.

As for Dwarven magic items, I have no problem at all with their being made by Clerics: have a Dwarven artificer make the item, then get it blessed by Moradin via a high-level Cleric, with the blessing giving it its enchantment.  Seems simple enough... 


> I disagree about allowing everyone to do everything.  3e rewards specialization quite heavily, especially when it comes to spellcasters.  1e and 2e double and triple class characters were true jacks-of-all-trades.  3e doesn't place the same rigid restrictions to one's particular class role that 1e and 2d do, but at the same time it very strongly encourages sticking to what you're really good at.  Even dabbling in 2 or 3 levels of another class can seriously inhibit your effectiveness in your primary class -- the extent to which this happens does vary from one class to the next, but is particularly harsh on full-progression spellcasters.



3e spellcasters do work better as single-class, I agree.  And you're right about 1e multi-classers; I put some restrictions on such things so long ago now I forget they weren't there in original design. 


> Gestalt isn't really part of the evolution.  It is explicitly presented as an option intended for smaller groups so that parties of 2 or 3 players can still cover all of the roles without relying on DM-provided NPCs (i.e. Cleric) to supplement them.



I'll go out on a limb and say Gestalt is in fact the thin edge of the design wedge; that 4e characters will more closely resemble 3e Gestalts than we all might expect (or want).  Me, I have no problem with the DM lobbing an NPC or two or three into the party to fill holes...and they fill graves well, too, though I find we kill off PC's about the same rate as party NPC's.


> The archetypal 4-character 3e strike force exists because WOTC's research showed that the average size of a gaming group was four players and one DM.  A lot of adventures for 1e or B/X D&D suggest groups of 4-6 or 5-8 characters... which a lot of groups never have.  Three fighters, a cleric, a magic-user, and a thief, or whatever the typical suggestion was.  Much of 3e's design takes into account the ways in which the research suggested that the majority of gamers actually play the game.



WotC's research had some big, big holes in it; but even without that there's one key assumption they make that isn't always true: that each player only runs one PC at a time.


> There are still your four basic roles, no matter which edition of the game you are playing.



Agreed, though it sometimes takes 6 or 8 characters to fill 'em. 

Lanefan


----------



## MerricB

Lanefan said:
			
		

> I wouldn't say "prevent" so much as "make it very rare and special" to get a stat boost.  Several canned modules had stat boost items built in - _Lost Temple of Tharizdun_ and _Castle Amber_ are two I can think of off the top - and there were also the various Tomes, Librams, etc. that a DM could lob in to a treasury if one wasn't already there.




It's interesting to look at stat-boosts in relation to early editions of D&D. My feeling was that in the early B/X adventures, stat-boosts were a lot more common than in later sources. Basic D&D, which in many ways hews closer to original D&D, can be a lot more wacky and freeform.

AD&D felt a lot more gritty, and didn't have those sort of wacky encounters to the same extent in its adventures, despite them being suggested in the DMG.

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

Lanefan said:
			
		

> 3e spellcasters do work better as single-class, I agree.  And you're right about 1e multi-classers; I put some restrictions on such things so long ago now I forget they weren't there in original design.




Multi-classing in 3e comes with huge costs; a Fighter/Rogue is effective, no doubt, but loses significantly over the specialisation of the pure Fighter or the pure Rogue. 3e rewards specialisation significantly.



> I'll go out on a limb and say Gestalt is in fact the thin edge of the design wedge; that 4e characters will more closely resemble 3e Gestalts than we all might expect




I disagree. Gestalt is simply 1e multiclassing adapted for 3e. It's a fine design experiment (like Mike Mearls' redesign of the rust monster), but it has no relevance for 4e.

Cheers!


----------



## I'm A Banana

> First, yes, I'm an elitist. What's the problem with that? Hobbies aren't democratic; whether your hobby is golf or chess or fly fishing or RPGs, some people are just better suited to them than others.




True, but the requirements certainly don't have to be "read Tolkein and Leiber." They could be "Read a Drizzit novel," or "See the LotR movie" or "Know an older brother who played D&D" or "Heard about it from a Weird Al song" or "Played Neverwinter Nights" or "Read Harry Potter" or even some fantasy manga such as "BLEACH." Indeed, they could be "Interested in being a legendary hero like Arthur or Achilles or Goku?"

Of course, those who have deeper fantasy experiences will get more from the game, but there's no reason to require it. I don't need to hit like Derek Jeter to play stickball with my buds in the park, I shouldn't need to be able to decipher opaque script in order to make-believe I'm an elf for four hours on a Saturday. 

This isn't just my opinion, either. In order to survive, the game needs to be fit for it's environment. The world has changed, and the "olde classics" of fantasy have become more irrelevant in the light of a new wave that is in multiple media. The game *must* adapt to this, or die the slow withering death of all things that do not change.

The game's "style" certainly has. Things like the Book of Nine Swords directly confess this influence, and the art style (much reviled though it may be) displays a broader base of fantasy inspiration than that which has come before.

Elitism doesn't benefit anyone. Just because I can't golf like Tiger and I can't quote the roster of the 1987 Bulls doesn't mean I can't put around a course or enjoy watching a basketball game. If not knowing who Tom Bombadil is excludes me from D&D, D&D is far, far too exclusive.



> I wouldn't advise a semi-literate person to play RPGs any more than I'd advise a blind person to take up clay pigeon shooting. At the end of the day, almost everyone who has fun playing RPGs is on the high end of the intelligence curve and they're generally fairly articulate and well-educated. And a lot of us are nerds, too.




There's a broad difference between not easily understanding "Gygaxese" and being semi-literate. There's also a huge difference between the intelligence and skills and, most importantly, EXPERIENCE of the players. I played with ditzy sororities, I played with the star running back in high school, I played with crazy hippies, trekkies, fashionistas, gangstas, twelve year olds, and barflies. They've all been pretty clever, they haven't all been interested in Tolkein, Leiber, and Howard, and they haven't been interested in emulating that in the slightest.

There's no reason -- no excuse -- for D&D to cater only to the elite nerds at the top of the dorkpile. Intelligent people who love fantasy of all stripes (which includes a VERY large number of people) should be welcomed to play with open arms.


----------



## MerricB

Keldryn said:
			
		

> I definitely favour the 3.x rules over any other edition of the game, but one thing that always comes to mind as something that I thought the 1e rules did right is that spellcasters had a much stronger flavour than they do in subsequent editions.
> 
> Illusionists weren't just Magic-Users specialized in Illusion/Phantasm spells.  They had their own unique spell list, with many spells that were not available to basic Magic-Users, ever.  Spells like Phantasmal Force were 1st level spells for Illusionists, but were 3rd level spells for Magic-Users.  2nd and 3rd Editions made the Illusionist extremely bland and lame, and also kind of sucked some of the flavour out of the Mage/Wizard as well by giving them a bloated spell list completely lacking in any sort of theme... just a list of all of the arcane spells in the game.




I definitely agree. 2e's changes to the spell lists were awful beyond belief. I *much* prefer individual spell lists for each class.

In some ways, 3e actually does it better...
* Ranger, Bard and Paladin now have their own unique spell lists, rather than piggybacking on the magic-user, druid or cleric lists
* Druid is back to a unique list, which feels *very* different from the cleric list.

Oh, and if you want the 1e illusionist... both the 3.5e Bard and the Beguiler come the closest. 

Cheers!


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> 3e rewards specialisation significantly.



It also rewards cherry picking 1 level here and there of both base classes and PrCs - the famous "1 level dip".

In general terms, though, I agree that 3.X has a better system for multi-classing than earlier eds, although I should mention this is something I houserule, too. I won't allow a player who is a Fighter to suddenly up and grab a level of Wizard out of the blue, without some solid "in character" justification, for example.


----------



## Thurbane

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Of course, those who have deeper fantasy experiences will get more from the game, but there's no reason to require it. I don't need to hit like Derek Jeter to play stickball with my buds in the park, I shouldn't need to be able to decipher opaque script in order to make-believe I'm an elf for four hours on a Saturday.



There's a reason it was called *Advanced* Dungeons & Dragons, you know!   


> This isn't just my opinion, either. In order to survive, the game needs to be fit for it's environment.



See, now we're back to the "more popular/better selling = better product" reasoning, which I strongly diagree with.


> The world has changed, and the "olde classics" of fantasy have become more irrelevant in the light of a new wave that is in multiple media. The game *must* adapt to this, or die the slow withering death of all things that do not change.



Like chess, for example. They better start making it with electric, flashing pieces that hover above the board in three dimensions, and simulataneously make the rules simpler while we're at it, otherwise it will surely suffer "withering death", hundreds of years of continuing popularity notwithstanding. 


> The game's "style" certainly has. Things like the Book of Nine Swords directly confess this influence, and the art style (much reviled though it may be) displays a broader base of fantasy inspiration than that which has come before.



Without rehashing old debates, or debates that better belong in other threads, I found Bo9S to be the most disappointing D&D supplement I have ever bought (in any edition) - almost nothing in it is remotely usable in my own game. If you want to recreate Dragon Ball Z, Crouching Tiger etc in your games, all fine and well, but it just does not fit with my game, as well as introducing a whole set of new (and IMHO, unneccessary) mechanics for stances and maneuvres.


> Elitism doesn't benefit anyone. Just because I can't golf like Tiger and I can't quote the roster of the 1987 Bulls doesn't mean I can't put around a course or enjoy watching a basketball game. If not knowing who Tom Bombadil is excludes me from D&D, D&D is far, far too exclusive.



No one is talking about excluding anyone, simply that a certain level of "elitism" is not neccessarily a bad thing. Sure, it might not be great idea from a purely marketing standpoint, but for the loyal fans who it does appeal to, it is much appreciated. It's all down to personal taste. I don't get into Gothic pantomime-type roleplaying, therefore Vampire has no real appeal for me - that is not the same as saying Vampire is elitist and trying to exclude me.

What you term "elitism", I call "niche appeal". I'm sure if Cannibal Corpse went for a more user friendly, commerical sound they'd probably sell more albums, but they'd also probably disappoint and alienate a lot of long standing fans.


> There's a broad difference between not easily understanding "Gygaxese" and being semi-literate. There's also a huge difference between the intelligence and skills and, most importantly, EXPERIENCE of the players. I played with ditzy sororities, I played with the star running back in high school, I played with crazy hippies, trekkies, fashionistas, gangstas, twelve year olds, and barflies. They've all been pretty clever, they haven't all been interested in Tolkein, Leiber, and Howard, and they haven't been interested in emulating that in the slightest.



No problems there whatsoever. To each his own, I say. Just because a certain "tone" was present in 1E doesn't mean that the players (or DMs) were expected to slavishly follow in the footsteps of Gygax.


> There's no reason -- no excuse -- for D&D to cater only to the elite nerds at the top of the dorkpile. Intelligent people who love fantasy of all stripes (which includes a VERY large number of people) should be welcomed to play with open arms.



There is a difference between exclusively catering to a certain type of person, and being written with an appeal to a certain type of person.

For instance, I would say that crossword puzzles generally appeal to people with good English and deductive skills, but I would not say that they are created to cater ONLY to those type of people...


----------



## Garnfellow

Gygaxian prose has its not inconsiderable charms, particularly to those exposed to it at a formative age. To this day, I still keep my 1st edition DMG handy for occasional inspiration. 

But let’s face it, from a technical standpoint that same prose is often not very good. I can completely understand people having a deep fondness for those original texts, since I largely share that sentiment. 

But I’m just not seeing that prose holding up as any sort of exemplar of a good, much less great, writing style – at its worst, the Gygaxian prose can be just plain turgid, a reminder that it owes much to an outmoded genre in which the writers were paid by the word. Sheer prolixity is not the same as good writing; obscurity is not the same as complexity. 

Me, I’m a much bigger admirer of clarity and precision in a prose style: Nabokov is a great example of a writer whose style is complex and dazzling, while also being a model of clarity and economy. 

If someone wants to trot out elitist literary or intellectual credentials, let them talk of  difficult writers like Joyce, Faulkner, or Pynchon if they wish to impress. But the 1st Edition DMG?  Nah, not so much.


----------



## Flexor the Mighty!

Keldryn said:
			
		

> I do think it's unfair to inflict severe and lasting damage on a character when it is the result of a single unlucky die roll or any other essentially random or arbitrary event.




Why?  It's a dice based game, why wouldn't dice be able to make major changes?  Becuase it conflicts with a DM's story?   Story be damned I say!


----------



## FireLance

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> Why?  It's a dice based game, why wouldn't dice be able to make major changes?  Becuase it conflicts with a DM's story?   Story be damned I say!



Because it conflicts with what the gaming group thinks is fun. It may not be what you think is fun, but some people like gaming with the seat belts on, so to speak. That's why some people bungee jump while others prefer to ride roller coasters (with seat belts).


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

jcfiala said:
			
		

> Chess pieces are not meant to represent people, and D&D characters are.  People, even in the same job, are different from each other in how well they can do different parts of their job.




If you play a wargame, you'll find the individual soldiers tend to be abstracted such that all the infantrymen in a unit have _exactly the same_ stats.  And yet wargames are fun for some people.  

AD&D gives you more variation, but not as much variation as d20 fantasy.  A difference of playstyle, certainly, but not a weakness of the system.


----------



## Maggan

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> I wouldn't advise a semi-literate person to play RPGs any more than I'd advise a blind person to take up clay pigeon shooting.  At the end of the day, almost everyone who has fun playing RPGs is on the high end of the intelligence curve and they're generally fairly articulate and well-educated.




I'd like to object to that model of thought.

Reading a game and playing a game are two different activities. I don't have to read the game to play it (as long as someone else does).

It is entirely possible for someone to join an rpg session and have fun, without having read the rules prior to the occasion. I've seen it happen loads and loads and loads of times, most often at conventions.

Sure, for a game as complex as D&D, I would advise someone who intends to continue playing to read the PH. Or the parts that pertain to his or her PC.

One of my best friends is dyslectic, and he runs one the best games I know of. I also know at least six or seven other gamers who are dyslectic, and they play just fine, thank you.



			
				PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Third, AD&D was published in several languages.




Well, not in Swedish. I found the writing of AD&D 1st ed difficult to understand, and settled for pure D&D and other rpgs instead. Tried AD&D, but never got hooked until D&D3e.

/M


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Maggan said:
			
		

> I'd like to object to that model of thought.
> 
> Reading a game and playing a game are two different activities. I don't have to read the game to play it (as long as someone else does).




I agree with that, and I should revise what I said.  You need one reasonably articulate and literate person as DM, and the others don't have to be - although a decent education will enhance their enjoyment of the game.



			
				Maggan said:
			
		

> One of my best friends is dyslectic, and he runs one the best games I know of. I also know at least six or seven other gamers who are dyslectic, and they play just fine, thank you.




Dyslexia doesn't stop you making sense of the 1e AD&D books either, though.  I have dyslexic friends who play that edition from choice.

Although they usually can't spell "dweomer".  



			
				Maggan said:
			
		

> Well, not in Swedish. I found the writing of AD&D 1st ed difficult to understand, and settled for pure D&D and other rpgs instead. Tried AD&D, but never got hooked until D&D3e.




Yes, I accept that:  AD&D wasn't published in Swedish.  I have a fair bit of sympathy for you there, because I have a German copy of Das Schwarze Auge and I do struggle to understand some of the passages.

But I don't expect the writers of Das Schwarze Auge to dumb down their German so that I'll understand it.

(As an aside, I must say that every Swedish person I've ever met in my life has spoken impeccable English.  Language skills in Sweden are one of your national strengths.)


----------



## MerricB

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> If you play a wargame, you'll find the individual soldiers tend to be abstracted such that all the infantrymen in a unit have _exactly the same_ stats.  And yet wargames are fun for some people.




If I may just note, the big difference between Wargames and RPGs is that Wargames have players controlling *many* figures, thus the complexity is kept to a reasonable level.

This can be a problem with 3e's symmetrical design for monsters/PCs. The PCs are at the right level of complexity for one person to handle, but as NPCs they can be too complex for the DM to handle. (This is, of course, a generalisation - many DMs don't really have that much trouble with the level of detail.)

Of course, a player controlling a simple piece (imagine only controlling the king in Chess) can become frustrated at the lack of variety. There's competing needs here between simplicity (so the DM can deal with it all) and complexity/variety so the player has areas to explore.



> AD&D gives you more variation, but not as much variation as d20 fantasy.  A difference of playstyle, certainly, but not a weakness of the system.




Only a weakness if you want more variation.  The system works fine in both versions as is, for the people who want to play that system (of course!)

Cheers!


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

MerricB said:
			
		

> If I may just note, the big difference between Wargames and RPGs is that Wargames have players controlling *many* figures, thus the complexity is kept to a reasonable level.




Ahh... here we come to the knotty question of henchmen.

3e parties basically don't use henchmen.  Sometimes there's an NPC who's got a job nobody else wants (often cleric), sometimes there's a DMPC whose job it is to spot "clues" at the right moment and send the party where the DM wants them to go, but as a general rule, it's one player, one character.

1e specifically assumes henchmen.  A player with average Charisma is going to pick up about four of them, but a paladin might have ten or fifteen.  The only time you're playing 1 character and 0 henchmen should be at first level when you can't afford a hench.  As it says in the DMG, henchmen make the difference between success and failure in the long term.

By the time you're 9th level you've got henchmen, hirelings, and followers, and most likely a whole bunch of men-at-arms and other flunkies looking after your stronghold.  One 9th level AD&D character usually represents more actual people than a whole party of 3e.


----------



## Numion

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> 1e specifically assumes henchmen.  A player with average Charisma is going to pick up about four of them, but a paladin might have ten or fifteen.  The only time you're playing 1 character and 0 henchmen should be at first level when you can't afford a hench.  As it says in the DMG, henchmen make the difference between success and failure in the long term.




Just an observation: It's quite funny that 3E is heavily criticized for the wealth guidelines and reliance on magic items because, the argument goes, it's the equipment and not the character doing the work. All the while 1E encourages PCs to have an army of followers. Like you said, to the point of being the difference between success and failure. 

Why are henchmen good and equipment bad? In neither case it's the character doing all of the work. Either way, I'll rather take up my trusty firespewing bow and go hunt me some dragons, 3E style, than start the morning with a 6:00 *roll call*


----------



## MerricB

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> 1e specifically assumes henchmen.  A player with average Charisma is going to pick up about four of them, but a paladin might have ten or fifteen.  The only time you're playing 1 character and 0 henchmen should be at first level when you can't afford a hench.  As it says in the DMG, henchmen make the difference between success and failure in the long term.




I'd like to know how many AD&D groups actually used henchmen. My group rarely did - funnily enough, I've used more henchmen in 3e than ever we did in 1e. (One party was 5 PCs and 4 cohorts... that was fun. )

Cheers!


----------



## Garnfellow

Numion said:
			
		

> Just an observation: It's quite funny that 3E is heavily criticized for the wealth guidelines and reliance on magic items because, the argument goes, it's the equipment and not the character doing the work. All the while 1E encourages PCs to have an army of followers. Like you said, to the point of being the difference between success and failure.
> 
> Why are henchmen good and equipment bad? In neither case it's the character doing all of the work. Either way, I'll rather take up my trusty firespewing bow and go hunt me some dragons, 3E style, than start the morning with a 6:00 *roll call*




I have to admit, I do not mourn the loss of those massive retinues that used to follow 1st edition PCs around, any more than the players ever mourned the loss of any one of those unnamed, unloved arrow-catchers. Cripes, it was not unusual for players to occasionally forget one or two of their "trusty" servants in the heat of battle. And I don't think a big 1e style battle pitting 40 gnolls, 2 ogres, and an EHP vs. 12 PCs, 8 henchmen, and 16 hirelings was significantly less complex or could be resolved much more quickly than a big 3e fight with four high level PCs against a bunch of demons. Both would be kind of a pain in the butt for the DM.

And with the possible exception of wilderness expeditions, such large groups often strained credulity. Hey, our intrepid party and their train of followers stretches all the way from the dungeon entrance down to the lich's throne room on level 7! Too bad only the 3 thieves can Hide in Shadows.

However, this discussion does suggest a neat approach to developing a low-magic d20 variant. Let's assume that a 3e PC's power consists 1/3 of ability scores, racial abilities and class abilities, 1/3 feats, and 1/3 magical gear. If we want to create a low magic variant that still maintains the baseline power of 3e, then we need to find a way to fill in the 1/3 loss of gear.

In Iron Heroes, Mike Mearls added more feats and new stunt mechanics to fill in the loss of gear. What if we created a new "grog" mechanic that modeled large retinues in an abstract way. Rather than track separate stat blocks for each individual grog, their presence is modeled by a single pool of grog bonuses to the PCs. Like the Leadership feat, the level and number of grogs would be based on the level of the PCs. So maybe 10 1st level warriors give all PCs a +1 grog bonus to hit and damage, while 20 2nd level warriors give a +4 grog bonus. When PCs take damage, the first 5 points are absorbed by the grogs. You could have a whole series of feats associated with this mechanic; maybe one feat lets a PC take damage in lieu of it coming out of the grog pool, while another feat lets a PCs sacrifice a grog in exchange for being able to flank an enemy.

This might be a way to make a d20 game with appeal to 1e sensibilities: less magic items and more red shirts!


----------



## Hussar

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Does this mean that chess is a boring game?  Because all the pieces are mechanically identical each time you play?




However, the big difference is, I'm in no way attempting to play the role of any of those pieces in Chess.  Mechanically, the pieces are identical, and that's fine for chess since you probably don't want chess games where previous games affect the mechanical aspects of present games.  Maybe, but, that's a pretty different sort of chess.

Me, I figure that the grizzled veteran warrior and the effete rapier wielding dilletante should be mechanically different.  In 1e, if I had two fighters with the same stats, there would be absolutely no difference mechanically between them.  And, yes, I say that's boring.



			
				KM said:
			
		

> There's no reason -- no excuse -- for D&D to cater only to the elite nerds at the top of the dorkpile. Intelligent people who love fantasy of all stripes (which includes a VERY large number of people) should be welcomed to play with open arms.




That is just siggable.

Like Merric, I never used henchmen either.  Followers were left at home.  Who needed them?  A 9th or 10th level 1e party of six or eight PC's could obliterate armies of pretty much anything that faced them.  The only thing henchmen would have been great for is save or die sort of stuff.

Look, I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but, think about this:  What is the most lethal 1e dungeon of all time?  Most would say Tomb of Horrors.  How many monsters are there?  Three?  Four?  And the demi-lich is pretty close to a trap anyway.  

The most lethal adventure in the 1e era had almost no monsters.  That pretty much says it all about how wimpy monsters were compared to PC's in 1e.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Numion said:
			
		

> Gary had a strange way of showing that. 1E might've allowed that, but then, by Gary, it wouldnt've been (A)D&D.
> 
> Actually I wouldn't start the list, because the first generation "3E is not D&D" (in year 2000, IIRC) threads we're based on the premise that _too much_ was possible with 3E.
> 
> Naah .. I know I'll regret this, but I can't help myself:
> 
> 1) GELATINOUS CUBE NINJA OF THE CRESCENT MOON!!!111!!eleven!!




You lose.

3e is just 1e with a LOT of house rules.

 

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Elitism doesn't benefit anyone.




I agree.  But, given a choice between elitism and the lowest common denominator, I will choose elitism every time.  It is my view that trying to reach the LCD _automatically lowers quality_ whereas elitism is exclusionary but not automatically as damaging.

OTOH, if you believe that the requirement of understanding Gygaxian prose is "elitism", then we beg to differ.  When I started playing, I had little difficulty in understanding what Gygax was saying...it even increased my vocabulary.  The many different types of die rolls in 1e also increased my math grades (as was the case for most of the other players I knew).

The Blue Box set shows, btw, that D&D could have both flavour and clarity.  It is not a one-or-the-other thing.  If 4e had the strong ruleset of 3e (with some clarifications & improvements, of course) with the flavour of 1e (or the blue box), I would be pretty happy with it.

I'd still modify it, of course.  It's in my nature.    

RC


----------



## MerricB

I think it's important to distinguish between Gary writing descriptive passages or advice in the AD&D DMG and Gary writing rules. Gary's at his best when he's describing the game or giving advice on why dragons are bad PCs. He's at his worst when giving the rules for initiative.

Rules need to be clearly explained. (Gary manages for the most part, but ties himself into knots for initiative and XP, to name two sections).

Blue Box D&D? Do you mean the J. Eric Holmes edition of D&D Basic? I detest that version. Give me Moldvay's any day. Much clearer rules, and very inspirational.

Cheers!


----------



## Raven Crowking

MerricB said:
			
		

> If I may just note, the big difference between Wargames and RPGs is that Wargames have players controlling *many* figures, thus the complexity is kept to a reasonable level.
> 
> This can be a problem with 3e's symmetrical design for monsters/PCs. The PCs are at the right level of complexity for one person to handle, but as NPCs they can be too complex for the DM to handle. (This is, of course, a generalisation - many DMs don't really have that much trouble with the level of detail.)
> 
> Of course, a player controlling a simple piece (imagine only controlling the king in Chess) can become frustrated at the lack of variety. There's competing needs here between simplicity (so the DM can deal with it all) and complexity/variety so the player has areas to explore.





MerricB, this is actually a great point, and one of the big reasons that I believe that it isn't actually desirable to have the rules for PCs and NPCs necessarily the same.  Quick NPCs ought to follow simpler rules than those for PCs.....if for no reason than to speed up statting (4e designers take note!).  

RC


----------



## Flexor the Mighty!

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I agree.  But, given a choice between elitism and the lowest common denominator, I will choose elitism every time.
> 
> RC




Damn straight.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Numion said:
			
		

> Why are henchmen good and equipment bad? In neither case it's the character doing all of the work. Either way, I'll rather take up my trusty firespewing bow and go hunt me some dragons, 3E style, than start the morning with a 6:00 *roll call*





1.  Henchmen perforce assume a social contract between PC and game world; they make the players engage the world in a way that equipment does not.

2.  Henchmen offer more opportunities to define the world & create verisimiltude than a trusty firespewing bow.

3.  When the Horta kills a red shirted security guard, the players heave a sigh of relief that it wasn't _their character_.  When a rust monster destroys a piece of equipment with the exact same value as that particular red shirt, certain players cry "Gotcha monster!  Unfair!"

4.  You can use your henchman as a primary PC when your PC is off somewhere else and something fun is in the offing (good reason for character trees!).


RC


----------



## Garnfellow

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> 1.  Henchmen perforce assume a social contract between PC and game world; they make the players engage the world in a way that equipment does not.
> 
> 2.  Henchmen offer more opportunities to define the world & create verisimiltude than a trusty firespewing bow.



Even when henchmen and hirelings are generally nothing more than an anonymous collection of hp? I've been in a lot of games where the players never even bothered to give their followers serious names. I remember a troupe of linkboys named "Link," "Lank," "Lunk", "Gunk," "Munk," and (I think) "Zunk."

One could argue magic items offer just as many opportunities to define the world. "This dagger was forged by the elves of Tarathus in the First Age, to commemorate the victory over the Orcish Tyrant, Throllghad."



			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> 3.  When the Horta kills a red shirted security guard, the players heave a sigh of relief that it wasn't _their character_.  When a rust monster destroys a piece of equipment with the exact same value as that particular red shirt, certain players cry "Gotcha monster!  Unfair!"



In theory, I can agree that seeing red-shirts drop *should* create a very cool, sobering in-game moment. "By Crom! That giant killed old Glew with but one blow! Let us avenge him, my comrades!" But because there is so much disparity between a 0-level commoner and a PC, seeing a hireling get taken down rarely elicits much more than a yawn from most players. (Heck, can't a housecat drop a 0-level NPC?)

Your "Gotcha monster" cry is a total straw man. I have never, never heard a 3e player utter such a whine, although I have found that players in ALL editions of D&D have far more emotionally invested in their magic items than in their followers. I remember a 1e player of a magic-user almost reduced to tears when his staff of the magi was destroyed in a cone of cold spell.


> 4.  You can use your henchman as a primary PC when your PC is off somewhere else and something fun is in the offing (good reason for character trees!).



Yeah, I can buy that.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Numion said:
			
		

> Why are henchmen good and equipment bad?




Neither are bad -- 1e certainly has its share of equipment!

Personally, what I find laughable are 3e's "Recommended wealth levels".  I don't find it laughable to assume that higher level characters have some phat lewzt0rz... I do find it laughable when the rules tell you how much they should have at each level.  See the difference?

I think that if there were "Recommended henchman levels" in 1e, you might have a point.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Garnfellow said:
			
		

> IThis might be a way to make a d20 game with appeal to 1e sensibilities: less magic items and more red shirts!




Good thought.  That's definitely a key aspect of it.

If you add in more red shirts, then you'd need to streamline combat and character generation to keep the game playable; I think you'd need to drop AoOs and standardise character builds.


----------



## thedungeondelver

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> There's no reason -- no excuse -- for D&D to cater only to the elite nerds at the top of the dorkpile. Intelligent people who love fantasy of all stripes (which includes a VERY large number of people) should be welcomed to play with open arms.




Did you spend all day building this strawman or was that just off the cuff?

Nobody here is asserting that D&D should be for "elitsts".

In the (very popular) AD&D games I run at conventions, I regularly have people show up who've never played the game before.  Sometimes I have folks show up who've never played _any_ RPG before - but they know that "AD&D" name and they're keen to give it a try.  I typically reccomend they play a fighter to ease them in to the rules.  

Four to eight hours later, I've got a group of folks who've thorougly enjoyed themselves - even the people who maybe didn't grok the rules for the first little bit.

I've _never_ gotten "elitest nerd" as a feedback on any of the comment cards for my game.  And I don't turn anyone away from my table.  So this "elitest nerd" comment...where exactly is that supposed to be coming from again?


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> So this "elitest nerd" comment...where exactly is that supposed to be coming from again?




It's aimed at me, Bill.  I said that Gygaxian prose wasn't aimed at illiterates.


----------



## jcfiala

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Personally, what I find laughable are 3e's "Recommended wealth levels".  I don't find it laughable to assume that higher level characters have some phat lewzt0rz... I do find it laughable when the rules tell you how much they should have at each level.  See the difference?




Hmm.  Not really.  I find it really helpful that there's a suggested amount of stuff that a character probably will have as of such-and-such a level.  It's good for a couple of things:

1) If I'm starting out a campaign at something other than 1st level, I can give them a chunk of money and know that their character will be on par with the challenges for that level.  They won't have magical equipment so powerful that they will blow away the monsters, but on the other hand they're not likely to be caught short without some appropriate magical assistance, such as AC boosters for wizards or magical arms for a warrior. 

2) It helps you keep an eye on how much treasure you're handing out for new DMs.  Monty Hall DMs are widely known for a reason - there's a point at which you're giving out so much magical stuff that there's no need for the players to play anymore - just point the magic doohicky at the bad guy and press the 'start' key.  A new DM can look at how much he's handed out, look at the level of his characters, and know if he's giving away too much or not.

I will say, though, that I wish the game wasn't quite so much Dungeons and Accountants after a long adventure.  A group I play in has finally gotten back to a town after a long time adventuring, and we've got a lot of equipment to liquidate... and a lot of math to do.  I wish there was an easier way to turn captured treasure into useful equipment and aid without so much work.


----------



## Maggan

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> So this "elitest nerd" comment...where exactly is that supposed to be coming from again?




To me, the notion that was expressed earlier that the game was not supposed to be played by those that failed english 101, is indicative of an elitist attitude.

And from that, I think the rest of the comments on elitism originated. I think that if anyone uses such an argument (paraphrased: "such and such doesn't have the proper knowledge gained from proper studies, so they shouldn't play the game"), one should be prepared to get involved in a debate on elitist views on the game and the playing of the game.

/M


----------



## cildarith

Even as a teenager, I alway appreciated the fact that the 1E manuals did not talk down to me, did not try to cater to the lowest common denominator, and vastly increased the range of my own vocabulary (even though it caused me to wear out the family dictionary almost as quickly as I wore out my original set of rulebooks).  If that is somehow "elitist", the world could do with a bit more of it, IMO.


----------



## Hussar

> Personally, what I find laughable are 3e's "Recommended wealth levels". I don't find it laughable to assume that higher level characters have some phat lewzt0rz... I do find it laughable when the rules tell you how much they should have at each level. See the difference?




Ok, I'm totally dropping the snark here, this I find interesting.

You agree that higher level characters should come with higher powered equipment.  I think we can likely all agree on that.  Why are guidelines for the amount of equipment a bad thing?  

I could see it as a problem if the guidelines were high, but, compared to what I remember hauling out of 1e modules, the wealth guidelines are actually pretty low.  A 7th level PC has 17k (IIRC) worth of goodies.  That's a +1 weapon, +1 suit of armor, +1 shield, some sort of miscellaneous item and a handful of potions.  For a 7th level character, that's pretty much exactly what you would find in most modules.

Actually, that I would be curious to see is how much wealth module NPC's and PC's were toting around at given levels.  I don't actually own a lot of those old modules anymore, but, to me, for a 7th level character to have nothing over +1 seems pretty fair.



> Even as a teenager, I alway appreciated the fact that the 1E manuals did not talk down to me, did not try to cater to the lowest common denominator, and vastly increased the range of my own vocabulary (even though it caused me to wear out the family dictionary almost as quickly as I wore out my original set of rulebooks). If that is somehow "elitist", the world could do with a bit more of it, IMO.




This also seems curious to me.  Why does straightforward writing equate with "talking down" and catering to the lowest common denominator?  (Never mind the incredibly elitist attitude that shows)  Take a look at the rules for most games - they are written in plain English as much as possible.  Chess has been brought up a few times.  Could there be a simpler game in terms rule clarity?  Piece X moves in pattern Y.  Land on your opponent's occupied square and take the piece.  

Why should game rules be written in convoluted styles?  I have no problems with setting books or adventure text being written this way.  That makes a great deal of sense to me since evoking a particular feel is key for both setting books and adventures.  But initiative?  Why do we need a feeling evoked for who gets to go first?

I'm most certainly not saying there is no place for evocative writing in RPG's.  That's obvious.  However, there is a time and place for it.  Making a game element that is going to come up hundreds of times over the course of a campaign more complicated than it needs to be is bad design.  Inventing words or using words from other languages without defining them is not a good idea in defining the rules of a game.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Personally, what I find laughable are 3e's "Recommended wealth levels".  I don't find it laughable to assume that higher level characters have some phat lewzt0rz... I do find it laughable when the rules tell you how much they should have at each level.  See the difference?




No.

The rules are only inform you that rough balance is maintained if the PCs have approximately that amount of loot.

This is only information.  It is not a rule, per se.

What you do with that information is up to you.


----------



## Numion

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Personally, what I find laughable are 3e's "Recommended wealth levels".  I don't find it laughable to assume that higher level characters have some phat lewzt0rz... I do find it laughable when the rules tell you how much they should have at each level.  See the difference?




I don't find the recommendations to be requirements. It just tells what the baseline is - and that is good to know when you want to choose a different level of wealth. 

Gary also saw the problem with giving too much loot, or at least he went on tirades against monty haul DMs (and then wrote adventures that were _beyond_ monty haul, but I digress). 3E designers decided to give one answer to that problem. An easy way to gauge if the group you DM is up to the task, or if you should put in harder or easier encounters.


----------



## JRRNeiklot

FireLance said:
			
		

> Because it conflicts with what the gaming group thinks is fun. It may not be what you think is fun, but some people like gaming with the seat belts on, so to speak. That's why some people bungee jump while others prefer to ride roller coasters (with seat belts).




Oh, please, Mr, Umpire, give me one more strike!  Striking out is not fuuuuunnn.  Make the pitcher throw it slower!

Let's lower the basketball goal, 10 feet is too high - I can't dunk!

Wah, wah, wah.


----------



## Kishin

Hussar said:
			
		

> This also seems curious to me.  Why does straightforward writing equate with "talking down" and catering to the lowest common denominator?  (Never mind the incredibly elitist attitude that shows)  Take a look at the rules for most games - they are written in plain English as much as possible.  Chess has been brought up a few times.  Could there be a simpler game in terms rule clarity?  Piece X moves in pattern Y.  Land on your opponent's occupied square and take the piece.
> 
> Why should game rules be written in convoluted styles?  I have no problems with setting books or adventure text being written this way.  That makes a great deal of sense to me since evoking a particular feel is key for both setting books and adventures.  But initiative?  Why do we need a feeling evoked for who gets to go first?
> 
> I'm most certainly not saying there is no place for evocative writing in RPG's.  That's obvious.  However, there is a time and place for it.  Making a game element that is going to come up hundreds of times over the course of a campaign more complicated than it needs to be is bad design.  Inventing words or using words from other languages without defining them is not a good idea in defining the rules of a game.




QFT. Save evocative descriptions and fanciful writing for fluff and adventure text.  Mechanical issues absolutely need to be laid out in the clearest, most direct language possible. Its bad game design otherwise, and promotes inconsistency, rule disputes and a host of other problems.


----------



## jcfiala

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Oh, please, Mr, Umpire, give me one more strike!  Striking out is not fuuuuunnn.  Make the pitcher throw it slower!
> 
> Let's lower the basketball goal, 10 feet is too high - I can't dunk!
> 
> Wah, wah, wah.




You never houserule your games to make them more fun for the players?


----------



## JRRNeiklot

House rule?  Perhaps.  But I don't change fundamental concepts like rolling 1d4 damage for a giants boulder.


----------



## Maggan

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Oh, please, Mr, Umpire, give me one more strike!  Striking out is not fuuuuunnn.  Make the pitcher throw it slower!
> 
> Let's lower the basketball goal, 10 feet is too high - I can't dunk!
> 
> Wah, wah, wah.




So when you play basketball with your friends, you rent a professional arena?   

Seems a lot of work just to have a bit of fun with a ball.

/M


----------



## Keldryn

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> First, yes, I'm an elitist.  What's the problem with that?  Hobbies aren't democratic; whether your hobby is golf or chess or fly fishing or RPGs, some people are just better suited to them than others.




That doesn't mean that those hobbies should go out of their way to exclude people who are not as well suited to them as others.  I've never been very well suited to more athletic hobbies... does that mean that I shouldn't be doing them?  I am not making any accusations, but there is usually a fine line between "elitist" and "arrogant snobbish jerk."    



> I wouldn't advise a semi-literate person to play RPGs any more than I'd advise a blind person to take up clay pigeon shooting.  At the end of the day, almost everyone who has fun playing RPGs is on the high end of the intelligence curve and they're generally fairly articulate and well-educated.  And a lot of us are nerds, too.




There is a huge difference between semi-literate and what we're talking about.  It's true that a lot of gamers are on the high end of the (academic) intelligence curve... but I've also met a lot who aren't, or at least aren't in terms of traditional academic measures.  A lot of gamers are fairly articulate but seem to be lacking in a lot of the social graces that many less educated and less "intelligent" people don't have issues with.  I've known a lot of gamers who had never touched a fantasy novel, or pretty much any other novel that wasn't required reading at school, before playing D&D.  And I think it's great that the game has improved the reading abilities of many people.  But I also think it's more likely to happen if the game books themselves are more clearly written.



			
				PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Second, I could read the AD&D DMG at the age of 10 and so could my friends.  You don't need a "college education."




Yeah, well I was reading the AD&D DMG while I was still in the womb!

I started with Basic/Expert D&D and added bits of AD&D over time until I eventually just switched over completely.  There was a lot of stuff in the DMG that we just didn't bother with because it wasn't very clearly explained, or it just seemed overly convoluted.  Of course you don't need a college education to read the DMG, and I never said that it required a college education.  But the way in which the DMG was written is definitely aimed at adults with a college-level reading ability.  That doesn't prohibit anybody from reading it, but it makes it somewhat less accessible to younger readers.



> Third, AD&D was published in several languages.




Of course it was, but that wasn't my point.  If you live in a country where English is the predominant language, where all of the local stores only stock the English versions of the books, and play in a group where most of the players are native English speakers or where English is the only common language amongst non-native speakers, the fact that it is published in different languages isn't that helpful.  The game rulebooks aren't novels, they are rulebooks, and it is beyond me why you would want to make them anything less than as clear  as possible in explaining the rules of the game.


----------



## Garnfellow

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Oh, please, Mr, Umpire, give me one more strike!  Striking out is not fuuuuunnn.  Make the pitcher throw it slower!
> 
> Let's lower the basketball goal, 10 feet is too high - I can't dunk!
> 
> Wah, wah, wah.




You do realize that MLB lowered the pitcher's mound in 1969 to give the hitters more of chance to hit the long ball?

And you must not watch much professional basketball, because the rules for that game are constantly changing.


----------



## Keldryn

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Actually, that's very true in my own case. I still remember thumbing though the 1E PHB which I managed to get cheap from a guy who retired from gaming. It's exactly as you say - I had a genuine sense of wonder when I was reading it. It held my interest the way a novel would.
> 
> With the 3.5PHB (I skipped 3E entirely, fortunately - *$cha-ching$*), it felt more like I was reading a Beginner's Guide to C++. The rules are so neatly set out, so structured, and so interwoven and airtight; coupled with that, there was no real "feeling" put into the writing that I could pick up on - everything is presented in totally factual and clinical terms.
> 
> It goes without saying that this is completely and totally a case of personal opinion. I should also point out that I was about 12 when I got the 1E PHB, and 33 when I got the 3.5 PHB, so I may be a lot more jaded these days.




The greatest sense of magic and wonder that I ever felt when reading a D&D book was when I was 12 and reading the Mentzer "Red Box" D&D Basic and Expert sets.  Needless to say, those were my first D&D books.  By the time I moved on to the 1e AD&D books, they never really held up to those first D&D sets.  There were a lot more character options and more comprehensive rules, but I always thought that the AD&D books lacked the flavour, magic, and wonder of those Basic, Expert, and Companion sets.

And no 3rd edition D&D book comes close to reading like a Beginner's C++ book.  I've never read an RPG book as intolerably boring as a C++ book.


----------



## Keldryn

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Does this mean that chess is a boring game?  Because all the pieces are mechanically identical each time you play?




Talk about comparing apples and... tomatoes.  We're talking about RPGs, not chess, and this is a pretty irrelevant diversion from the point being discussed.

But yeah, chess _is_ an intolerably boring game, but it doesn't have anything to do with the pieces being identical each time you play.


----------



## jcfiala

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> House rule?  Perhaps.  But I don't change fundamental concepts like rolling 1d4 damage for a giants boulder.




And that's cool - as well as being a lot more grown up than whining about strikes.  I don't mind disagreeing with other people, but childish posts like that don't advance the conversation - it stops it to no benefit.


----------



## Numion

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Oh, please, Mr, Umpire, give me one more strike!  Striking out is not fuuuuunnn.  Make the pitcher throw it slower!
> 
> Let's lower the basketball goal, 10 feet is too high - I can't dunk!
> 
> Wah, wah, wah.




Strange argument, coming from you. 1E is the "mother may I" game. And in my experience having no rules for something in 1E meant "it can't be done" rather than the rosy picture painted about 1E, that the fair and just DM was ready wing on a moment notice.


----------



## Ourph

Hussar said:
			
		

> You agree that higher level characters should come with higher powered equipment.  I think we can likely all agree on that.  Why are guidelines for the amount of equipment a bad thing?




The guidelines were used by the designers as part of the CR system (as were the standard 25 pt. buy stat array and the four PC party).  You can call them "optional" if you want, but what you are really saying is that WBL guidelines are "optional if you don't mind the CR system becoming essentially worthless to you".  IMO an "optional" part of the game isn't really optional if failing to use it means other parts of the game system stop working properly.

That said, I'm not opposed to WBL guidelines - I don't think they are a bad thing - I just think it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that AD&D's assumptions about equipment affect the way the game plays in the same way that 3e's assumptions do.  3e's assumptions are integral to the system whereas if AD&D considered the effect of equipment at all, it was as an abstract consideration where the main point is "too much is bad".


----------



## Keldryn

Thurbane said:
			
		

> You're comparing apples and ornages here.




Err.. how am I comparing apples and oranges?  The post I was referring to stated "mechanically identical."  So I was addressing mechanical customization.  



> I will freely admit that 3.X allows for more _mechanical_ customisation of characters, but back in 1E, two characters of the same level were by no means clones. In fact, I would argue that the very same factor actually encouraged more development of character personality and identity roleplay-wise to make your character unique, rather than relying on a page of Feat, Skill and PrC stats and figures.




I think that's BS that 1e's lack of mechanical customization more strongly encouraged unique personality development.  There have been well-developed, interesting characters and shallow, dull characters in every role-playing system.  Are 3e players relying on their lists of feats, skills, and prestige classes to define their characters' identities and personalities any more than 1e players let "chaotic good elf fighter" define their characters' personalities?  Or it is just an assumption that you are making without any actual basis in reality?  GURPS, Hero, Vampire and many other systems have had skills, advantages and disadvantages -- many of which actually are personality-related, unlike in 3e -- for years, and any players whom I encountered that relied simply on those lists were the same ones who mainly defined their AD&D characters' personalities by "chaotic neutral thief."



> Not to say you can't roleplay just as well in 3.X, before anyone jumps back on that argument again...




I'm not going to make that argument.  I just don't agree that the lack of mechanical customization encourages players to develop unique personalities for their characters any more than having those options does.  It's always boiled down to how much effort the player feels like putting into developing his character, regardless of the system involved.  I've found that having those options available sometimes helps to give a player ideas that he might not have had otherwise.


----------



## Keldryn

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Dwarves had a small amount of magic resistance in old editions, if memory serves...as did Hobbits.  Having such beings able to be wizards didn't make much sense.




IIRC, the legendary Dwarven magic resistance was basically a saving throw bonus.  I don't think they actually had a Magic Resistance percentage as defined by the rules.

And neither race had as much magic resistance as Drow, which strangely enough, were allowed to be magic-users.  Dragons had magic resistance too.  Actually, there are a lot of monsters in AD&D that have high magic resistance (more than Dwarves), yet still possessed lot of powerful magic abilities.  Why pick on Dwarves in particular?



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> As for Dwarven magic items, I have no problem at all with their being made by Clerics: have a Dwarven artificer make the item, then get it blessed by Moradin via a high-level Cleric, with the blessing giving it its enchantment.  Seems simple enough...




Why do all Dwarven magic items have to be divinely-created?  Why aren't Dwarves allowed to study how to craft and enchant these items on their own?  Given their connections to the earth, why don't Dwarves have the ability to learn any earth-based arcane magic?  I think it robs Dwarven crafters of some of their legendary abilities, by requiring the actions of an external divine entity in order to create anything magical.  Plus, I don't think 1e made any distinction between arcane and divine magic in terms of how magic resistance or save vs. spell bonuses worked.  Why were Dwarves allowed to be clerics but not magic-users, if they are so inherently non-magical?



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> 3e spellcasters do work better as single-class, I agree.  And you're right about 1e multi-classers; I put some restrictions on such things so long ago now I forget they weren't there in original design.




1e and 2e multi-classing (and the ridiculously convoluted dual classing) was one of the things I was happiest to see go in 3e.  Unless you were playing in a long-term campaign, it was generally much more advantageous to multiclass in two classes, as you would usually only be one level behind a single-class character in each of your two classes.  Once you started to hit 10th-12th level or so, you started lagging behind, but most campaigns didn't seem to last that long.



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> I'll go out on a limb and say Gestalt is in fact the thin edge of the design wedge; that 4e characters will more closely resemble 3e Gestalts than we all might expect (or want).




Is this just a gut feeling, or has their been some discussion from the folks at WoTC that have led to you believe this?  I haven't been in the loop much lately, so I'm asking an honest question here.



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> Me, I have no problem with the DM lobbing an NPC or two or three into the party to fill holes...and they fill graves well, too, though I find we kill off PC's about the same rate as party NPC's.




I prefer not to, as I'd rather that the PCs know that they are responsible for whatever happens to them... whether than be victory or defeat.  If the party is lacking in healing ability, I generally prefer to have them find a few extra healing potions, rather than give than an NPC cleric.



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> WotC's research had some big, big holes in it; but even without that there's one key assumption they make that isn't always true: that each player only runs one PC at a time.




I think that assumption is true more often than not.  Well, at least most DMs I've encountered really don't like to do that.  I'm sure there were some holes in WotC's research, but it seems to be a fairly accurate picture of how the game is played by the majority of players, at least from my perspective.  Which could be wrong, of course.


----------



## Ourph

Keldryn said:
			
		

> Why do all Dwarven magic items have to be divinely-created?  Why aren't Dwarves allowed to study how to craft and enchant these items on their own?  Given their connections to the earth, why don't Dwarves have the ability to learn any earth-based arcane magic?  I think it robs Dwarven crafters of some of their legendary abilities, by requiring the actions of an external divine entity in order to create anything magical.




Dwarven items aren't divinely created.  All "dwarven" items were simply expertly crafted items of dwarven make that were enchanted with the aid of elven magic-users (long ago when the elves and dwarves lived in peace, harmony and cooperation).  The rift and enmity between the elves and dwarves occured when the elves (disagreeing with the uses the dwarves were finding for some of their items) withdrew their assistance in creating more magical artifacts.  The dwarves, in their anger, destroyed all records of the elves aid in creating these items and reimagined them as family heirlooms handed down through hundreds of generations from mastercraftdwarves of ancient history whose skill alone was enough to imbue the items with magical puissance.  This is why all dwarven-make magical items are 1) old, 2) rare and 3) jealously guarded by their dwarven owners.


----------



## Keldryn

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> True, but the requirements certainly don't have to be "read Tolkein and Leiber." They could be "Read a Drizzit novel," or "See the LotR movie" or "Know an older brother who played D&D" or "Heard about it from a Weird Al song" or "Played Neverwinter Nights" or "Read Harry Potter" or even some fantasy manga such as "BLEACH." Indeed, they could be "Interested in being a legendary hero like Arthur or Achilles or Goku?"




Exactly.  I hadn't really read much fantasy before getting into D&D.  I had both AD&D licensed games for my Intellivision when I was about 9 or 10.  I remembered seeing the cartoon on TV when I'd spend the weekend at my cousin's house (we only got two channels out in the sticks where I lived at the time).  So I was aware of the name Dungeons & Dragons.  A couple of years later, I was really into the Choose Your Own Adventure Books.  My mom would pick them up for me at garage sales, and one time she bought me a bunch of TSR's Endless Quest books with some of those CYOA books.  Around the same time, I was seeing a lot of ads for the D&D Basic/Expert/Companion/Masters/Immortals sets in my G.I. Joe comics.  Those sparked my interest enough to start looking at D&D books in toy and book stores, and soon I bought the "red box" Set 1: Basic Rules.

So it was Endless Quest and G.I. Joe comics that originally led me to D&D.  Not exactly classics of literature there.  I didn't read Tolkein until several years later, and I've still never read Leiber or any of the other books that inspired Gygax.  I started reading Moorcock, but never really got into it.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> This isn't just my opinion, either. In order to survive, the game needs to be fit for it's environment. The world has changed, and the "olde classics" of fantasy have become more irrelevant in the light of a new wave that is in multiple media. The game *must* adapt to this, or die the slow withering death of all things that do not change.




Yes.  Future D&D gamers are going to be those who grew up on Harry Potter, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Final Fantasy.  It's unavoidable, as this isn't the 70s and 80s, and tomorrow's gamers are growing up with different influences than we had.



			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> There's no reason -- no excuse -- for D&D to cater only to the elite nerds at the top of the dorkpile. Intelligent people who love fantasy of all stripes (which includes a VERY large number of people) should be welcomed to play with open arms.




Totally agreed.  Actually, I generally can't stand to play D&D with the "top of the dorkpile" elite nerds anymore.  They take the game too seriously.  Yes, by all means give your character some personality and backstory -- but eight pages of handwritten backstory, both sides, is perhaps excessive.  They take an interest in the fact that I want to run a game, but then tell me they won't play if I'm not running it on a weekly basis.  They take fifteen minutes to open a door and enter a room because they insist on probing the floor in front of the door with a 10' pole, listening at the door several times, searching every inch of it for traps, arranging the rest of the party members around the doorway, searching the walls across from the door for traps, searching the keyhole for traps, finally opening the door but only a crack ... for crying out loud, there's NOTHING THERE, get on with the game already.

Of course I'm generalizing, and that was said with tongue-firmly-in-cheek, but yeah, the elite D&D nerds tend to get on my nerves too much to spend much time with.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

jcfiala said:
			
		

> Hmm.  Not really.  I find it really helpful that there's a suggested amount of stuff that a character probably will have as of such-and-such a level.  It's good for a couple of things:
> 
> 1) If I'm starting out a campaign at something other than 1st level, I can give them a chunk of money and know that their character will be on par with the challenges for that level.  They won't have magical equipment so powerful that they will blow away the monsters, but on the other hand they're not likely to be caught short without some appropriate magical assistance, such as AC boosters for wizards or magical arms for a warrior.




... and the hammer meets the nail head.  "On par with the challenges for that level" is precisely what d20 fantasy's all about.  Apart from me, hardly anyone even challenges that any more.

Ask yourself:  What does "on par with the challenges for that level" mean?

It means:  "This party can, statistically, kill four encounters a day with a moderate and acceptable level of risk."  Which creates the mindset:  "This challenge is fair, that challenge isn't."  Which creates the whole sense of entitlement that really frustrates me about 3e.  "I'm x-level so I should have y-wealth and be facing z-CR creatures."

I'm sure you can see where I'm going now, but I'll spell it out in case anyone's feeling lazy:  The assumptions behind these recommended wealth levels and CR calculations are mathematical.  The whole game's in the dice rolls and the stacking modifiers and the mechanics.

[This is actually an oversimplification.  d20 fantasy is basically two games.

The first game is where the players match the stacking modifiers on their character sheets against the stacking modifiers on the DM's adventure sheet and roll the dice, as I've explained above.

The second game is basically amateur theatrics for people who like to "get in character."  That's fun sometimes but it's system-neutral; you don't even need dice for it.  You can have fun "getting in character" in a game of Let's Pretend.

Therefore roleplaying is irrelevant to the discussion.  Any comparison of editions has to ignore roleplaying considerations and focus on the mechanics before it can be productive.  So I felt free to help myself to the oversimplification.]

Does anyone object to that characterisation of d20 fantasy?  Or fail to understand how 1e was different?


----------



## Keldryn

MerricB said:
			
		

> I definitely agree. 2e's changes to the spell lists were awful beyond belief. I *much* prefer individual spell lists for each class.
> 
> In some ways, 3e actually does it better...
> * Ranger, Bard and Paladin now have their own unique spell lists, rather than piggybacking on the magic-user, druid or cleric lists
> * Druid is back to a unique list, which feels *very* different from the cleric list.
> 
> Oh, and if you want the 1e illusionist... both the 3.5e Bard and the Beguiler come the closest.




Yeah, I agree with you.  I like that the Ranger and Bard, for example, actually have a handful of spells unique to their lists.  The PHB2 Beguiler makes a nice substitute for the 1e Illusionist, and is perhaps a better favoured class for the Gnome then is the Bard.

The Wizard spell list in 3.x is still kind of bland and bloated though.  I wish that it had a bit more flavour, even if it organized spells into some sort of themes or paths.  For example, if spells like Burning Hands or Scorch were prerequisites to learning Fireball.  Learning the basics of one theme before learning the more advanced spells.  GURPS Magic is kind of set up like this, and I do remember a Dragon article or two detailing a D&D version of this.


----------



## Henry

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Does anyone object to that characterisation of d20 fantasy?  Or fail to understand how 1e was different?




A good question arises from this: Did and do you ever run games starting at a level other than first character level? If so, what criteria do you use in character creation -- one from a source other than you, such as the DM appendix, or something that you and/or your group created over time?

The reason for the mathematical baseline is just for the sake of establishing a baseline, where none existed before. One of Gary's strongest admonitions was to avoid Killer DM-ism as well as Monty-Haul-ism, and establishing a baseline is one way to avoid both. (Not that 3E necessarily has it right, but they try to establish a line between too much and too little). I think that most 3E gamers don't mind having a baseline other than 1st level that is official, even if nothing else but to have something to deviate away from.


----------



## Keldryn

Thurbane said:
			
		

> It also rewards cherry picking 1 level here and there of both base classes and PrCs - the famous "1 level dip".




That's more a side effect of allowing more freedom in multi-classing.  A big part of it is simply in how class abilities are allocated per level, and 3.5 saw some changes here.  If a class (like the 3e Ranger) has a lot of abilities granted at 1st level, and your current class doesn't offer anything more than a few hit points and skill points at the next level, it can certainly be tempting to dip for a level.  But it ends up being at the expense of your primary class, and as you reach higher levels in your primary class, that 1-level-dip often becomes a pretty weak choice.  When your Wizard hits 11th level, you may very well be wishing that you hadn't taken that one level of Fighter, because the extra caster level and spells that you could have for being a 12th level Wizard are a lot more useful now than the extra 10 hit points, Power Attack, and +1 BAB.

If the DM is allowing 1-level dips into PrCs... that's the DM's fault, not the system.  If he's letting PrCs just be basic classes with mechanical requirements, then that's his choice.  In my (admittedly limited) experience in DMing 3e, my players have generally be sticking with one class.



			
				Thurbane said:
			
		

> In general terms, though, I agree that 3.X has a better system for multi-classing than earlier eds, although I should mention this is something I houserule, too. I won't allow a player who is a Fighter to suddenly up and grab a level of Wizard out of the blue, without some solid "in character" justification, for example.




I don't see it as too much of a problem, aside from PrCs, which I think are intended to have a role-playing justification for taking them -- although a lot of DMs and players don't seem to bother.  If a party of characters are adventuring together for a while, it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch of the imagination that they would be able to pick up enough from the others here and there to be able to justify taking 1st level in another class.


----------



## Keldryn

Thurbane said:
			
		

> There's a reason it was called *Advanced* Dungeons & Dragons, you know!




Yeah, because Dave Arneson had some claim to the Dungeons & Dragons name. 

When I first started with my old Basic Set, I just assumed that Advanced was some step beyond Basic and Expert.  It wasn't that clear to me until later that it was an entirely seperate game, it just seemed like additional stuff to add later on.



			
				Thurbane said:
			
		

> See, now we're back to the "more popular/better selling = better product" reasoning, which I strongly diagree with.




I don't think he's making that argument at all.  Our generation isn't going to live forever.  And I've watched most of my gamer friends get married, focus on their careers, start their own families...  none of us have the time and money for gaming that we did in our teenage and university years.  It's not about making the game more popular or better selling, it's about making sure that new people are coming into the hobby to replace those who are no longer actively gaming.  And they are going to respond to different things than we did when we started playing D&D.  I do think that a "better product" takes into account the nature of its customers -- and not just the existing customers, but the new and future customers as well.



			
				Thurbane said:
			
		

> Like chess, for example. They better start making it with electric, flashing pieces that hover above the board in three dimensions, and simulataneously make the rules simpler while we're at it, otherwise it will surely suffer "withering death", hundreds of years of continuing popularity notwithstanding.




That sound kind of cool, actually.    Except the rules aren't really that complicated.  I do like the hovering above the board effect though.  I'm sure that I'd still find it a boring game.


----------



## Ourph

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Does anyone object to that characterisation of d20 fantasy?  Or fail to understand how 1e was different?




I understand the point you are trying to make, but don't necessarily agree.  3e does mathematically and systematically what any good AD&D DM was doing for themselves organically and with guidelines from the rulebooks like HD and the "Level" entry included in the AD&D MMII and FF (i.e. - looking at the strength of an encounter and determining whether it was going to be easy, medium, hard or nearly insurmountable for the characters that would be facing it).  There is, after all, a reason why the published AD&D modules had recommended party level and size listed.  AD&D assumed that the majority of challenges faced by a party would be neither cake-walks nor insurmountable but somewhere in between. The fact that there is more detailed guidance and hand-holding in the 3e rules when it comes to judging encounter difficulty doesn't require that the game become a "victory factory", nor do I think that the rules assume the game is going to be run that way any more than the recommended party size and composition guidelines in published AD&D modules indicate that every challenge therein was going to be automatically overcome.

On the other hand, the "victory factory" style game IS (IME) very prevalent in the hobby these days, but (as I said earlier in the thread) I think that stems much more from a change in player personality and viewpoint than from changes in the rules.  Our culture (at large, not just gamer culture) is much more focused on entitlements than it used to be.  Maybe it's easier to accomodate that mindset with 3e than with AD&D, but IMO it's the culture shaping the rules, not the rules shaping the culture.  It's not that the rules force a "victory factory" style of play, it's that many players (for whatever reason) want that kind of game and DMs use the more detailed guidelines of 3e as an aid in giving players what they want.

So no, I don't really see that the 1e rules were vastly different philosophically, but the 1e culture (say late 1970s through late 1980s) was certainly different.


----------



## Keldryn

Flexor the Mighty! said:
			
		

> Why?  It's a dice based game, why wouldn't dice be able to make major changes?  Becuase it conflicts with a DM's story?   Story be damned I say!




I'm not saying that the dice shouldn't be able to make major changes.  I just don't like setups where the players have no reasonable way of anticipating and/or avoiding what is about to happen, something springs on them, the player or DM rolls a die, and due to an unlucky roll, the PC dies, loses a point from an ability score permanently, loses a level permanently, or what have you.  And I'm not just talking from the perspective as a player, but also as a DM.  I think it punishes the players unfairly for essentially playing the game the way it is meant to be played.  Looking at it in terms of operant conditioning, it's just the application of a negative stimulus at random intervals.  If you believe that players should be rewarded for clever ideas, playing in-character, making smart tactical choices, retreating when outmatched, and the like (which are all pretty clear examples of positive reinforcement), then why would you believe in inflicting severe consequences the die came up a 1 or 2 while the player wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary?  The player isn't doing anything wrong, he is just doing what he is normally rewarded for but every once in a while he gets punished for it instead.  

And then you get situations where the player knows what could happen but because his character doesn't know, he plays in-character and doesn't act on the player knowledge.  Due to an unlucky role, the player ends up being punished for playing in-character, despite the fact that you are trying to encourage and reward such behaviour.  It strikes me as inconsistent and unfair at times.


----------



## Keldryn

MerricB said:
			
		

> This can be a problem with 3e's symmetrical design for monsters/PCs. The PCs are at the right level of complexity for one person to handle, but as NPCs they can be too complex for the DM to handle. (This is, of course, a generalisation - many DMs don't really have that much trouble with the level of detail.)




This is one of my (relatively few) complaints about 3e.  Although I have come to realize that the DM doesn't really need to specify every NPC and opponent in that level of detail if his obsessive-compulsiveness doesn't drive him to do it.  Some of the stuff in the DMG2 helps quite a bit in providing a "good enough" base to use for an NPC who is only going to be alive for an encounter or two anyway.  For a combat, anyway, if I know the NPC's hit points, AC, BAB, initiative modifier, number of attacks, and damage dice, it's generally enough to get by.


----------



## Keldryn

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> 1e specifically assumes henchmen.  A player with average Charisma is going to pick up about four of them, but a paladin might have ten or fifteen.  The only time you're playing 1 character and 0 henchmen should be at first level when you can't afford a hench.  As it says in the DMG, henchmen make the difference between success and failure in the long term.
> 
> By the time you're 9th level you've got henchmen, hirelings, and followers, and most likely a whole bunch of men-at-arms and other flunkies looking after your stronghold.  One 9th level AD&D character usually represents more actual people than a whole party of 3e.




I've very rarely ever seen henchmen used in any edition or flavour of (A)D&D.  I've never cared for them as a DM, because they're essentially just disposable PCs.  Nodwick isn't purely the result of one author's imagination.    As a player, it's just more bookkeeping, and the heroic legends -- at least the ones that I am familiar with -- are usually about the small band of heroes, not the small band of heroes and their dozen flunkies who open all the doors and chests for them.

I have doubts the the majority of 1e games actually made use of henchmen in the way you describe.


----------



## Ourph

Keldryn said:
			
		

> The player isn't doing anything wrong, he is just doing what he is normally rewarded for but every once in a while he gets punished for it instead.




Isn't that just part of playing a game though?  I hate to bring up Chess again, but to put it in perspective, there is a range within games from a 100% strategic/tactical game like Chess where there isn't any randomness and a player is in complete control of their fate to a game like War (the card game) where there's no strategy and winning/losing all comes down to luck.  D&D falls somewhere in the middle.  As long as you are incorporating chance, there's always a possibility that a player will do everything right and still wind up "losing".  You might be a masterful Monopoly player, but if you get unlucky and land on the wrong squares or draw lots of the negative _Chance_ and _Community Chest_ cards you can still lose.

It seems to me that in a game that is partially based on randomness and chance the possibility of something unexpectedly good or unexpectedly bad happening (and being challenged to cope with the consequences through good play) is part of the fun.  Rather than labelling the occasional, randomly generated, negative event as "negative reinforcement" I look at it as a necessary reminder to good players.  In other words, occasionally suffering a setback even if they are doing everything right helps good players remember why they bother doing everything right.  If they didn't, this stuff would be happening to them much more frequently.


----------



## Keldryn

Hussar said:
			
		

> Me, I figure that the grizzled veteran warrior and the effete rapier wielding dilletante should be mechanically different.  In 1e, if I had two fighters with the same stats, there would be absolutely no difference mechanically between them.  And, yes, I say that's boring.




Not only that, but in 1e (or 2e), the lightly-armoured rapier-wielding dilletante wasn't really a viable character option.  There wasn't really any way for a high-dex Fighter wearing lighter or no armour and wielding a lighter weapon to actually be effective in combat compared to a high-strength, heavy-armour wearing-fighting wielding a heavier weapon.  1e tried specialized NPC classes like the Duelist, and 2e had kits like the Swashbuckler, but 3.x allows such a character to be workable from the core rules, without a bunch of plug-ins.  Granted, there is still a bias toward the high-str, high-AC Fighter in 3.x, but your high-dex, lightly-armoured Fighter with the Dodge-Mobility-Spring Attack feat chain is a lot less likely to get laughed at by all the other Fighters and could still hold his own in melee.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Look, I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but, think about this:  What is the most lethal 1e dungeon of all time?  Most would say Tomb of Horrors.  How many monsters are there?  Three?  Four?  And the demi-lich is pretty close to a trap anyway.
> 
> The most lethal adventure in the 1e era had almost no monsters.  That pretty much says it all about how wimpy monsters were compared to PC's in 1e.




I don't think it's a very well-designed adventure anyway.  I've got the module, I ran it a couple of times many years ago, and it's just chock full of "save or die" moments that pop out of nowhere.  The risk of unpredictable and immediate death in that module far outweighs any rewards gained within the Tomb.


----------



## Keldryn

Maggan said:
			
		

> To me, the notion that was expressed earlier that the game was not supposed to be played by those that failed english 101, is indicative of an elitist attitude.
> 
> And from that, I think the rest of the comments on elitism originated. I think that if anyone uses such an argument (paraphrased: "such and such doesn't have the proper knowledge gained from proper studies, so they shouldn't play the game"), one should be prepared to get involved in a debate on elitist views on the game and the playing of the game.
> 
> /M




Yeah, I think it might have been me who threw the word "elitist" into the (recent) discussion.

Sorry.


----------



## Lanefan

Keldryn said:
			
		

> IIRC, the legendary Dwarven magic resistance was basically a saving throw bonus.  I don't think they actually had a Magic Resistance percentage as defined by the rules.
> 
> And neither race had as much magic resistance as Drow, which strangely enough, were allowed to be magic-users.  Dragons had magic resistance too.  Actually, there are a lot of monsters in AD&D that have high magic resistance (more than Dwarves), yet still possessed lot of powerful magic abilities.  Why pick on Dwarves in particular?



Not sure, unless it was to make them clearly distinct from Elves and other PC races.  Drow, Dragons, etc. weren't intended to be PC's and thus could be as unbalanced as they liked. 


> 1e and 2e multi-classing (and the ridiculously convoluted dual classing) was one of the things I was happiest to see go in 3e.  Unless you were playing in a long-term campaign, it was generally much more advantageous to multiclass in two classes, as you would usually only be one level behind a single-class character in each of your two classes.  Once you started to hit 10th-12th level or so, you started lagging behind, but most campaigns didn't seem to last that long.



Ours do, in general.  I ditched dual-classing ages ago and freed up racial multiclassing, but also put some restrictions on what could multi- with what and how well it would function in each class (mainly to stop some shenanigans that were going on with people multi-classing Rangers).

Re: Gestalt in 4e:


> Is this just a gut feeling, or has their been some discussion from the folks at WoTC that have led to you believe this?  I haven't been in the loop much lately, so I'm asking an honest question here.



Gut hunch, based on the ongoing "give the players what they want and they want it all" trend, and extrapolating from there.

Re: NPC's as party members: 


> I prefer not to, as I'd rather that the PCs know that they are responsible for whatever happens to them... whether than be victory or defeat.  If the party is lacking in healing ability, I generally prefer to have them find a few extra healing potions, rather than give than an NPC cleric.



Unless you give out healing potions by the bucketful, they're no substitute for a spare Cleric.  Having an NPC also allows me a chance to steer them right if they're getting nowhere, or steer them wrong if I'm feeling ornery...  

Usually, the NPC I chuck in will be a spare front-liner of some sort...Fighter, Cavalier, whatever...unless there's a party-recognized glaring hole and they go out and recruit someone to fill it (sometimes Cleric, sometimes Thief, but surprisingly often Ranger).

Re: WotC research and the 4-PC party:


> I think that assumption is true more often than not.  Well, at least most DMs I've encountered really don't like to do that.  I'm sure there were some holes in WotC's research, but it seems to be a fairly accurate picture of how the game is played by the majority of players, at least from my perspective.  Which could be wrong, of course.



Over the 25-year-ish long run, we've settled into having usually 4 or 5 players at a time running a party of 6-12 characters at a time, with campaigns lasting 5-12 years.  In other words, vastly different from the WotC norm...

Lanefan


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Henry said:
			
		

> A good question arises from this: Did and do you ever run games starting at a level other than first character level? If so, what criteria do you use in character creation -- one from a source other than you, such as the DM appendix, or something that you and/or your group created over time?




Sure.  When I was a teen, I ran all sorts of silly games.

If you're talking about playing as a grownup, though, I may be a bad example of what you're trying to illustrate, because I've been running a game set in the same world for almost all my gaming life, and my group still call my wife "the newbie" because she didn't join the group until the mid-80's... The party is effectively immortal, because there are always some henchmen (yes that word again) who stay behind to mind the castles or something, so even a total party wipe doesn't mean starting afresh with new characters.

I did recently begin to run a 1e pbp game where the party began at level 6 or 7, but it's a bit of an unusual setup  -- the party are former slaves of the drow, now escaped but still in the Drow realms, so nobody started with any equipment at all.


----------



## Lanefan

Keldryn said:
			
		

> I'm not saying that the dice shouldn't be able to make major changes.  I just don't like setups where the players have no reasonable way of anticipating and/or avoiding what is about to happen, something springs on them, the player or DM rolls a die, and due to an unlucky roll, the PC dies, loses a point from an ability score permanently, loses a level permanently, or what have you.  And I'm not just talking from the perspective as a player, but also as a DM.  I think it punishes the players unfairly for essentially playing the game the way it is meant to be played.



Where to me that *is* playing the game the way it was meant to be played!  The key thing is to tell the players up front that Bad Things Will Happen and they'll have to be prepared to deal with it (if they aren't, find other players) as part of the game.



> Looking at it in terms of operant conditioning, it's just the application of a negative stimulus at random intervals.  If you believe that players should be rewarded for clever ideas, playing in-character, making smart tactical choices, retreating when outmatched, and the like (which are all pretty clear examples of positive reinforcement), then why would you believe in inflicting severe consequences the die came up a 1 or 2 while the player wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary?  The player isn't doing anything wrong, he is just doing what he is normally rewarded for but every once in a while he gets punished for it instead.
> 
> And then you get situations where the player knows what could happen but because his character doesn't know, he plays in-character and doesn't act on the player knowledge.  Due to an unlucky role, the player ends up being punished for playing in-character, despite the fact that you are trying to encourage and reward such behaviour.  It strikes me as inconsistent and unfair at times.



You're right.  It is.  But that doesn't make it wrong, and I say this as a player whose PC's have lost more than their share of lives, levels, and gear over time...

Lanefan


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Ourph said:
			
		

> I understand the point you are trying to make, but don't necessarily agree.  3e does mathematically and systematically what any good AD&D DM was doing for themselves organically and with guidelines from the rulebooks like HD and the "Level" entry included in the AD&D MMII and FF (i.e. - looking at the strength of an encounter and determining whether it was going to be easy, medium, hard or nearly insurmountable for the characters that would be facing it).




The assumption I want to challenge here is the assumption that the DM needs to look at that at all.  I realise that the way AD&D was often played in the 1980's, that assumption held -- but  it's not what the actual rules say at all.

What the rules say is, paraphrased: "Creatures of this level will tend to be found on this dungeon level."  And they also say that in the wilderness, creatures of any arbitrary level could be encountered at random... the underlying assumption was that wilderness adventures were for tough, experienced, competent characters who knew how to get out of the way!

It's simplistic, I realise, but very important.

In this paradigm the DM makes no judgment about who will be facing what encounter.  It's the players who decide that.


----------



## Keldryn

Ourph said:
			
		

> The guidelines were used by the designers as part of the CR system (as were the standard 25 pt. buy stat array and the four PC party).  You can call them "optional" if you want, but what you are really saying is that WBL guidelines are "optional if you don't mind the CR system becoming essentially worthless to you".  IMO an "optional" part of the game isn't really optional if failing to use it means other parts of the game system stop working properly.




I don't see how failing to use the WBL guidelines stop the other parts of the game system from working properly.  If you're giving out less treasure than what the WBL guidelines suggest, then you know that a monster of a particular CR is most likely going to provide a greater challenge than its specified CR.  If you've been really stingy with treasure, then perhaps that CR3 monster might be equivalent to CR5.  How does this make CR worthless?  You use it pretty much the same way as before.  It's just a way of getting an assessment of a monster's difficutly at a glance.  If you know that you're giving out rougly 25% less treasure than the WBL guidelines, then you know that encounters rated as appropriate for the party's level(s) will be more challenging.  I don't get the complaint.



> That said, I'm not opposed to WBL guidelines - I don't think they are a bad thing - I just think it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that AD&D's assumptions about equipment affect the way the game plays in the same way that 3e's assumptions do.  3e's assumptions are integral to the system whereas if AD&D considered the effect of equipment at all, it was as an abstract consideration where the main point is "too much is bad".




I disagree with that.  Plenty of AD&D monsters required +1 or better weapons to hit, +2 or better weapons to hit, etc through +5 or better weapons to hit.  Monsters with a very high number of hit dice pretty much assume that your PCs will have some magic armour or they will be dead in pretty short order, since AC doesn't scale up with level like hit points and the attack matrices do.  3e just makes it more clear as to what assumptions are made and breaks them down into wealth-by-level averages to remove a lot of the guesswork on the DM's part.


----------



## Keldryn

Ourph said:
			
		

> Dwarven items aren't divinely created.  All "dwarven" items were simply expertly crafted items of dwarven make that were enchanted with the aid of elven magic-users (long ago when the elves and dwarves lived in peace, harmony and cooperation).  The rift and enmity between the elves and dwarves occured when the elves (disagreeing with the uses the dwarves were finding for some of their items) withdrew their assistance in creating more magical artifacts.  The dwarves, in their anger, destroyed all records of the elves aid in creating these items and reimagined them as family heirlooms handed down through hundreds of generations from mastercraftdwarves of ancient history whose skill alone was enough to imbue the items with magical puissance.  This is why all dwarven-make magical items are 1) old, 2) rare and 3) jealously guarded by their dwarven owners.




That's one (rather stereotypical) way of explaining it.  What if the Dwarf-Elf relationship didn't work that way in my world?  Why weren't the Dwarves able to craft their own enchanted items before meeting the Elves?  It doesn't satisfy my curiousity.


----------



## Keldryn

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Ask yourself:  What does "on par with the challenges for that level" mean?
> 
> It means:  "This party can, statistically, kill four encounters a day with a moderate and acceptable level of risk."  Which creates the mindset:  "This challenge is fair, that challenge isn't."  Which creates the whole sense of entitlement that really frustrates me about 3e.  "I'm x-level so I should have y-wealth and be facing z-CR creatures."




You're making quite the assumption there.  Where is this mindset and sense of entitlement actually being displayed?  It's not something that I or any of my friends (who all play a lot more regularly than I do) have noticed.  My experiences are certainly not taken to be representative of the gaming population as a whole, but... where is this actually happening?




			
				PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> I'm sure you can see where I'm going now, but I'll spell it out in case anyone's feeling lazy:  The assumptions behind these recommended wealth levels and CR calculations are mathematical.  The whole game's in the dice rolls and the stacking modifiers and the mechanics.




That is only if you are assuming that players and DMs feel bound by not deviating from the CR and WBL guidlines as if they are set in stone.  And I challenge that assumption.



			
				PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Therefore roleplaying is irrelevant to the discussion.  Any comparison of editions has to ignore roleplaying considerations and focus on the mechanics before it can be productive.  So I felt free to help myself to the oversimplification.
> 
> Does anyone object to that characterisation of d20 fantasy?  Or fail to understand how 1e was different?




I certainly object to it.  1e was certainly different in that it made it a lot easier for the DM to misjudge a monster's power and walk all over the party with it.    At least until I eventually just got a better feel for what each monster's overall power level was.  But this "everyone uses the CR and WBL guidelines as written or else the players scream that it's unfair" assumption is as valid as the assumption that everybody played 1e by the rules exactly as they were written.


----------



## Keldryn

Ourph said:
			
		

> Isn't that just part of playing a game though?  I hate to bring up Chess again, but to put it in perspective, there is a range within games from a 100% strategic/tactical game like Chess where there isn't any randomness and a player is in complete control of their fate to a game like War (the card game) where there's no strategy and winning/losing all comes down to luck.  D&D falls somewhere in the middle.  As long as you are incorporating chance, there's always a possibility that a player will do everything right and still wind up "losing".  You might be a masterful Monopoly player, but if you get unlucky and land on the wrong squares or draw lots of the negative _Chance_ and _Community Chest_ cards you can still lose.
> 
> It seems to me that in a game that is partially based on randomness and chance the possibility of something unexpectedly good or unexpectedly bad happening (and being challenged to cope with the consequences through good play) is part of the fun.  Rather than labelling the occasional, randomly generated, negative event as "negative reinforcement" I look at it as a necessary reminder to good players.  In other words, occasionally suffering a setback even if they are doing everything right helps good players remember why they bother doing everything right.  If they didn't, this stuff would be happening to them much more frequently.




Sure, it's part of the game, but I think it's better when the players can attribute severe consequences to mistakes on their part, rather than just some random event.  Because it leads to behaviour where every freaking door in the dungeon takes several minutes to open, nobody walks anywhere without probing the floor with a 10' pole first, characters open every chest by standing behind it and to the side, etc.  All of these door-opening, wall-searching, floor-probing, chest-opening, lock-picking, treasure-handling "procedures" that players come up with are the result of everything in the dungeon being potentially loaded with some sort of save-or-die trap.  As a DM, it drives me absolutely nuts how pedantic some players are about this, and ridiculous amounts of game time get spent on these trivial tasks.


----------



## Keldryn

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Re: Gestalt in 4e:
> Gut hunch, based on the ongoing "give the players what they want and they want it all" trend, and extrapolating from there.




I still haven't seen much evidence of this trend in practice, only in discussions on Internet message boards.



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> Re: WotC research and the 4-PC party:
> Over the 25-year-ish long run, we've settled into having usually 4 or 5 players at a time running a party of 6-12 characters at a time, with campaigns lasting 5-12 years.  In other words, vastly different from the WotC norm...




My run has been about 20 years now, since I was 12, and we pretty much quit running more than one character per player at about the age of 14.  Had a few groups of 6 or more players in the high school years, but after that it's been pretty steady at 4 or 5 players with one character each, with most "campaigns" fizzling out before the 6-month point -- and that's playing once or twice a month.   My experience (and my friends') is certainly closer to the WotC norm that yours, it would seem.


----------



## Ourph

Keldryn said:
			
		

> I don't see how failing to use the WBL guidelines stop the other parts of the game system from working properly.  If you're giving out less treasure than what the WBL guidelines suggest, then you know that a monster of a particular CR is most likely going to provide a greater challenge than its specified CR.




Not true.  CR is based on a number of factors, some of which are affected by what equipment the PCs have and some of which aren't.  The modification isn't a straight ratio for all monsters.  A DM deviating from the guidelines has to consider a monster's challenge level, in most cases, from the ground up, adjusting for the way lack of equipment affects the challenge of that particular monster.



> I disagree with that.  Plenty of AD&D monsters required +1 or better weapons to hit, +2 or better weapons to hit, etc through +5 or better weapons to hit.  Monsters with a very high number of hit dice pretty much assume that your PCs will have some magic armour or they will be dead in pretty short order, since AC doesn't scale up with level like hit points and the attack matrices do.




I think you're missing my point.  I'm not saying equipment didn't matter in AD&D or that there wasn't an assumption that higher level PCs would have higher level equipment.  But that assumption wasn't in any way built into the rules the way the WBL/CR/EXP systems are linked in 3e.  The interaction of equipment, wealth, level and challenge were abstract at best (IMO they were simply hand-waved and left for the DM to adjudicate).  This is not a critique saying "1e did it better" but a statement that "1e did it different" and is meant as a response to a comment that seemed to be saying that 1e and 3e did it basically the same way.


----------



## Ourph

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> The assumption I want to challenge here is the assumption that the DM needs to look at that at all....In this paradigm the DM makes no judgment about who will be facing what encounter.  It's the players who decide that.




I think you are somewhat overstating your adherence to the "Darwinian World" model here.  I find it impossible to believe anyone generates a world completely at random and without consideration for the types of challenges they expect their players to engage.  You wouldn't sit down to DM a game for a party of 6th level characters and tell them there are 3 local areas where adventure can be had and that they are 1) a nest of 3 giant rats plaguing a local farmer; 2) an lone Ogre that's been holding up people on the main road; and 3) an invading army of demons, thousands strong, led by Orcus himself.  There's nothing in there for a 6th level party to sink their teeth into, it's either too easy or beyond their abilities. As a DM creating a world, you engage in judgements about what the characters will face all the time, in your case you just give them a menu to choose from rather than only preparing one meal.  But presenting a menu where nothing is "edible" for the players in question leaves them with no choice at all, which is worse than only having access to a single choice.

There is no assumption (either in my post, the 1e rules or the 3e rules) that the DM will make sure the players only take on challenges where it's possible for them to be victorious, but there is definitely an assumption that the DM will prepare at least SOME challenges which are neither too easy nor too difficult for the PCs and that he will make it at least possible for the PCs to recognize the challenges which are beyond their abilities before they stumble into them.  Doing so requires estimating the PCs abilities vs. the challenge represented by monsters and NPCs.  As I said before, 1e gave the DM some tools to do that and 3e expands on and adds to those tools.  Doing so doesn't require that the DM use those tools to build a "victory factory" campaign any more than AD&D required that Otyughs be encountered ONLY on dungeon level X.

The paradigm you are railing against is driven by the personality and preferences of individual players and the current gaming culture.  The way the rules are used reflects that, but the rules themselves don't enforce it or dictate it.


----------



## Numion

Ourph said:
			
		

> I think you're missing my point.  I'm not saying equipment didn't matter in AD&D or that there wasn't an assumption that higher level PCs would have higher level equipment.  But that assumption wasn't in any way built into the rules the way the WBL/CR/EXP systems are linked in 3e.  The interaction of equipment, wealth, level and challenge were abstract at best (IMO they were simply hand-waved and left for the DM to adjudicate).  This is not a critique saying "1e did it better" but a statement that "1e did it different" and is meant as a response to a comment that seemed to be saying that 1e and 3e did it basically the same way.




No, "1e did it mostly not at all". 

The advice to gauge advercaries were so vague to be basically useless. Now, a good DM has little trouble in determining the level of challenges he wants in 1E. In the same way, a good DM can throw away the wealth guidelines in 3E, and wing it just like in 1e. The difference in the systems lies with newer DMs. 

I've had two players from my group run campaigns in 3E (n00b DMs), and they had very little problems using the CR/EL system to gauge opposition. It's mainly anecdotal evidence, but in other systems _most_ of the new DMs I've seen muck it up. (I don't have delusions that my players had learned to be good DMs because of playing under me - it was mostly the system).


----------



## Ourph

Keldryn said:
			
		

> Sure, it's part of the game, but I think it's better when the players can attribute severe consequences to mistakes on their part, rather than just some random event.  Because it leads to behaviour where every freaking door in the dungeon takes several minutes to open, nobody walks anywhere without probing the floor with a 10' pole first, characters open every chest by standing behind it and to the side, etc.  All of these door-opening, wall-searching, floor-probing, chest-opening, lock-picking, treasure-handling "procedures" that players come up with are the result of everything in the dungeon being potentially loaded with some sort of save-or-die trap.  As a DM, it drives me absolutely nuts how pedantic some players are about this, and ridiculous amounts of game time get spent on these trivial tasks.




Different strokes I guess, but IMO taking those precautions is what "doing things right" is all about.  Rather than considering the opening of a door a "trivial task" I enjoy it that each door* in my games feels like a challenge to the players and requires the same type of consideration that daily spell selection or planning an attack might.  Treating every door as just a mundane portal seems like a waste of potential challenges and suspense to me.

*caveat - This applies to doors in dungeons and other places of adventure.  The front door of the local inn isn't going to be trapped and the players know this.


----------



## Ourph

Numion said:
			
		

> No, "1e did it mostly not at all".




Why the "No"?  "1e did it mostly not at all" is exactly what I said.   :\


----------



## Numion

Ourph said:
			
		

> Why the "No"?  "1e did it mostly not at all" is exactly what I said.   :\




I got confused writing the post   

But my point was:

1E:

Give 'standard' wealth --> Minimal guidelines for gauging opposition
Give 'monty / stingy' wealth --> Minimal guidelines for gauging opposition

3E:

Give 'standard' wealth --> EL guide for ultimate balance
Give 'monty / stingy' wealth --> Minimal guidelines for gauging opposition

So any way you look at it, adhere to wealth guidelines or not, 3E offers more or at least the same as 1E. It's not logical to fault D&D for losing it's strict EL guide when giving different treasure, when 1E never had that EL guide to begin with.

But then again, after writing a post where I'm thinking decision analysis terms _does_ make me wonder about the soul of the game


----------



## Flexor the Mighty!

Keldryn said:
			
		

> I'm not saying that the dice shouldn't be able to make major changes.  I just don't like setups where the players have no reasonable way of anticipating and/or avoiding what is about to happen, something springs on them, the player or DM rolls a die, and due to an unlucky roll, the PC dies, loses a point from an ability score permanently, loses a level permanently, or what have you.  And I'm not just talking from the perspective as a player, but also as a DM.  I think it punishes the players unfairly for essentially playing the game the way it is meant to be played.  Looking at it in terms of operant conditioning, it's just the application of a negative stimulus at random intervals.  If you believe that players should be rewarded for clever ideas, playing in-character, making smart tactical choices, retreating when outmatched, and the like (which are all pretty clear examples of positive reinforcement), then why would you believe in inflicting severe consequences the die came up a 1 or 2 while the player wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary?  The player isn't doing anything wrong, he is just doing what he is normally rewarded for but every once in a while he gets punished for it instead.




Sometimes you lose even when you do everything right.   And to me fair goes out the window when the dice come to the table, they have no concept of fair. 

Suppose your players do some wonderful things to overcome major obstacles in a very creative way to advance to the golem guarding the wizards chambers that they are after, and then the party fighter moves into combat and rolls four straight ones and gets killed quickly, or something like that.   That is unfortunate, but that is how it happens.   I don't think that is punishment at all, it's just the way the dice bounce.


----------



## MerricB

Keldryn said:
			
		

> I have doubts the the majority of 1e games actually made use of henchmen in the way you describe.




See here:
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20369&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Cheers!


----------



## Ourph

Numion said:
			
		

> So any way you look at it, adhere to wealth guidelines or not, 3E offers more or at least the same as 1E. It's not logical to fault D&D for losing it's strict EL guide when giving different treasure, when 1E never had that EL guide to begin with.




I think the main difference here is that because CR/EL/WBL/XP etc. are so tightly meshed in 3e a DM who wants to change one aspect (but not the others) needs to consider his modifications more carefully than he would with AD&D where that interaction isn't a consideration.  1e controlled wealth and level pretty consistently by making the gaining of treasure the main factor in gaining XP.  You really couldn't have an instance where you had a 10th level character who had never had two gold pieces to rub together because the mechanics of the game made GP and XP almost synonymous.  With 3e, the gaining of XP and treasure have become seperated, but keeping them at consistent levels is still important to the way the game functions, so 3e DMs have more to consider when making modifications.

In other words you're gaining the benefits of more detailed guidance and a more integrated system, but you trade that for the inconvenience of doing more work when you want to change some of the parameters without affecting the rest.


----------



## JRRNeiklot

Garnfellow said:
			
		

> You do realize that MLB lowered the pitcher's mound in 1969 to give the hitters more of chance to hit the long ball?




Yes, I am aware of that, and it was a stupid rule change, falling right in there with darkness making light.  



> And you must not watch much professional basketball, because the rules for that game are constantly changing.




Rule changes are not neccessarily bad.  Changing something fundamental just to make it easier on the players is.  One poster said something to the effect that a random dice roll should not result in a character death.  Taking the fear of pc death out of the game is basicly the same as lowering the rim to 8 feet, giving hitters 5 strikes, etc.  But please, if you have fun playing a game with no consequences for unwise  actions or unlucky rolls, go right ahead.  Without risk, there is no reward.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Garnfellow said:
			
		

> Your "Gotcha monster" cry is a total straw man. I have never, never heard a 3e player utter such a whine





Not even in this thread?


----------



## Raven Crowking

cildarith said:
			
		

> Even as a teenager, I alway appreciated the fact that the 1E manuals did not talk down to me, did not try to cater to the lowest common denominator, and vastly increased the range of my own vocabulary (even though it caused me to wear out the family dictionary almost as quickly as I wore out my original set of rulebooks).  If that is somehow "elitist", the world could do with a bit more of it, IMO.





Quoted for Truth.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Keldryn said:
			
		

> Why do all Dwarven magic items have to be divinely-created?  Why aren't Dwarves allowed to study how to craft and enchant these items on their own?





Let's not lay this design element at Tolkein's door, though.  In Tolkein, dwarves could and did cast spells.  It is explicit that they made magical items, including magic doors, magic lettering, and magic toys.  It is explicit that Thorin Oakenshield and Gandalf _both_ cast spells to protect the troll's gold they buried.


RC


----------



## Numion

Ourph said:
			
		

> I think the main difference here is that because CR/EL/WBL/XP etc. are so tightly meshed in 3e a DM who wants to change one aspect (but not the others) needs to consider his modifications more carefully than he would with AD&D where that interaction isn't a consideration.  1e controlled wealth and level pretty consistently by making the gaining of treasure the main factor in gaining XP.  You really couldn't have an instance where you had a 10th level character who had never had two gold pieces to rub together because the mechanics of the game made GP and XP almost synonymous.  With 3e, the gaining of XP and treasure have become seperated, but keeping them at consistent levels is still important to the way the game functions, so 3e DMs have more to consider when making modifications.




And how can it be easier to control* a system where Gold = Xp than separate Xp and treasure? In 1e you're stuck in a very rigid level / gold formula, because whatever treasure you give, up goes the Xp. It's like the DM has no choice at all - in 3E the choice exists, and it comes with the warning that the usual EL thingy might not work as expected. I think having a system (with caveats) for that is a bonus when comparing to no system at all. You're faulting 3E for losing what 1E has never had when someone alters the wealth they put out.

Well, ok, I guess "no control at all" _is_ the easiest system to control, because it involves no decisions at all.

This is interesting stuff, nonetheless.


----------



## Numion

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Quoted for Truth.




Better someone pick up a D&D book and put it down because of Garys yarns, instead of becoming a gamer? I understand that the elite needs to be exclusive to _stay_ the elite, but I consider the health of the hobby more important than basking in my own superiority. YMMV.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Keldryn said:
			
		

> Sure, it's part of the game, but I think it's better when the players can attribute severe consequences to mistakes on their part, rather than just some random event.





I think you will be happy when 6e comes out, then, and you no longer use dice.


RC


----------



## Flexor the Mighty!

Numion said:
			
		

> Better someone pick up a D&D book and put it down because of Garys yarns, instead of becoming a gamer? I understand that the elite needs to be exclusive to _stay_ the elite, but I consider the health of the hobby more important than basking in my own superiority. YMMV.




Gimme a break.   I doubt that happened often at all.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Numion said:
			
		

> Better someone pick up a D&D book and put it down because of Garys yarns, instead of becoming a gamer? I understand that the elite needs to be exclusive to _stay_ the elite, but I consider the health of the hobby more important than basking in my own superiority. YMMV.





I understand that the lowest common denominator needs to be catered to in order to _stay_ the lowest common denominator.  After all, higher expectations tend to lead to higher results.  But, then, I consider that the quality of the game is more important than the health of the hobby, or you basking in your own superiority.  Better the hobby stay worth being healthy, than be healthy but dull.  YMMV.


RC


----------



## Thurbane

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> No.
> 
> The rules are only inform you that rough balance is maintained if the PCs have approximately that amount of loot.
> 
> This is only information.  It is not a rule, per se.
> 
> What you do with that information is up to you.



Which is all fine and well, until some snotty player starts banging his fists on the table calling you a bad DM because he is 5SP behind the table in the DMG. Oh but I forgot, this only happens on the internet, and never in real life...


----------



## Thurbane

Kishin said:
			
		

> QFT. Save evocative descriptions and fanciful writing for fluff and adventure text.  Mechanical issues absolutely need to be laid out in the clearest, most direct language possible. Its bad game design otherwise, and promotes inconsistency, rule disputes and a host of other problems.



Oh yes, because when you write rulebooks in "legalese", there's never any rules disputes, is there? *cough* Rules Forum *cough*


----------



## Numion

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> But, then, I consider that the quality of the game is more important than the health of the hobby, or you basking in your own superiority.  Better the hobby stay worth being healthy, than be healthy but dull.  YMMV.





That is, of course, if the yarns had a positive effect on anything besides your vocabulary.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Numion said:
			
		

> That is, of course, if the yarns had a positive effect on anything besides your vocabulary.





Which, if by "yarns" you mean the text of the 1e books, I believe to be true.


----------



## The Shaman

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> True, but the requirements certainly don't have to be "read Tolkein and Leiber."



Strawman argument - there's never been a "required reading list," only a list of sources and influences used by the original authors in developing the game.

At the time the game was created in the mid-Seventies, and for some years later...







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> "...a Drizzit novel"...



...didn't exist...







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> "...the LotR movie"...



...didn't exist...







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> ..."an older brother who played D&D"...



...was possible...







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> "...a Weird Al song"...



...didn't exist...







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> "...Neverwinter Nights"...



...didn't exist...







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> "...Harry Potter"...



...didn't exist, and ..







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> "...BLEACH"...



...didn't exist. And as far as a player...







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> "(i)nterested in being a legendary hero like Arthur or Achilles or Goku?"



...that was supported by the game fairly early on in its development.

Fantasy was a much smaller pool in the days when _D&D_ appeared - IMHO Gary Gugax and Dave Arneson and the rest were not attempting to create a generic game, but rather one based on the authors and stories that they enjoyed. In this they succeeded masterfully. One cannot reasonably criticize earlier editions of the game for not embracing fiction tropes that would not become popular for another twenty years.

Please forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you, but in this post and others past you have suggested that (1) _D&D_ should be able to support a wide variety of fantasy influences and sources and (2) gamers clinging to the idea that _D&D_ is intended to emulate or best represents classic or golden age (as opposed to contemporary or more recent) fantasy need to accept that both fantasy and the game have moved on.

With respect to (1), while _D&D_ can be (and some might argue is) a generic fantasy RPG, it's important to remember that it does have strong roots going a long way back into the works and ideas of a range of specific authors, and that these roots still feed the game today. In an earlier post I touched on core races, the magic system, and alignment as examples of this. While some of the more recent Wizzos supplements, like _Bo9S_, have indeed attempted to embrace more contemporary fantasy and expand the scope of the fantasy genre that can be played using _D&D_, there is no reason to expect that _D&D_ or gamers in general should or would embrace other sources like _anime_/_manga_ or J.K. Rowling or steampunk. Is it advantageous to the copyright holders for it to do so? Perhaps, if that means that the number of gamers who buy into the system significantly exceed those who leave off and play something else instead.

With respect to (2), I agree that fantasy has changed, as have many gamers' expectations about what a tabletop RPG should provide. Should _D&D_ change and/or expand to meet those needs? I think perhaps it should, but I don't necessarily think that it's a given - following trends isn't a guarantee of "relevance," and there's a good argument to be made against trying to be the flavor-of-the-week. In any case I don't accept that change is automatically desireable or necessary by any means.


----------



## Thurbane

Keldryn said:
			
		

> That's more a side effect of allowing more freedom in multi-classing.  A big part of it is simply in how class abilities are allocated per level, and 3.5 saw some changes here.  If a class (like the 3e Ranger) has a lot of abilities granted at 1st level, and your current class doesn't offer anything more than a few hit points and skill points at the next level, it can certainly be tempting to dip for a level.  But it ends up being at the expense of your primary class, and as you reach higher levels in your primary class, that 1-level-dip often becomes a pretty weak choice.  When your Wizard hits 11th level, you may very well be wishing that you hadn't taken that one level of Fighter, because the extra caster level and spells that you could have for being a 12th level Wizard are a lot more useful now than the extra 10 hit points, Power Attack, and +1 BAB.
> 
> If the DM is allowing 1-level dips into PrCs... that's the DM's fault, not the system.  If he's letting PrCs just be basic classes with mechanical requirements, then that's his choice.  In my (admittedly limited) experience in DMing 3e, my players have generally be sticking with one class.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't see it as too much of a problem, aside from PrCs, which I think are intended to have a role-playing justification for taking them -- although a lot of DMs and players don't seem to bother.  If a party of characters are adventuring together for a while, it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch of the imagination that they would be able to pick up enough from the others here and there to be able to justify taking 1st level in another class.



So, if the DM let's players take a 1 level dip in PrCs it's "his fault", but if he disallows a character from picking up a 1 level dip in base classes, he's stomping on the players rights?

Without trying to be insulting, I see a lot of your views simply as "3.X says so, so it must be right". My point (or a large part thereof) is that I have felt, and still free, to houserule any aspect of a D&D game I am running, regardless of edition. The reason I have houserules in effect regarding 1 level dips is for flavour reasons, not mechanical ones. Are the games you are involved in strictly "by the book", or is the DM trying to inject some flavour inot the games? Either style of play is fine, just different.

I think a lot of your criticisms of 1E seem to be based on some flawed assumptions. You assume that the game should (must?) be played as is, out of the box, and houseruling is fundmentally bad. You also seem to be assuming that a DM is not free to ignore or adjust the flavour of the game to suit his own style, and that of his group. For instance, there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from running a 1E game that includes Dwarven Wizards - the only time that would conceivably be a problem would be if you tried to port that character over from one game to another, and the second DM didn't allow Dwarven Wizards in his campaign...


----------



## Thurbane

Keldryn said:
			
		

> Yeah, because Dave Arneson had some claim to the Dungeons & Dragons name.
> 
> When I first started with my old Basic Set, I just assumed that Advanced was some step beyond Basic and Expert.  It wasn't that clear to me until later that it was an entirely seperate game, it just seemed like additional stuff to add later on.



 


> I don't think he's making that argument at all.  Our generation isn't going to live forever.  And I've watched most of my gamer friends get married, focus on their careers, start their own families...  none of us have the time and money for gaming that we did in our teenage and university years.  It's not about making the game more popular or better selling, it's about making sure that new people are coming into the hobby to replace those who are no longer actively gaming.  And they are going to respond to different things than we did when we started playing D&D.  I do think that a "better product" takes into account the nature of its customers -- and not just the existing customers, but the new and future customers as well.



He most certainly IS making that argument, if not in that particular post, certainly in numerous earlier ones.


> That sound kind of cool, actually.    Except the rules aren't really that complicated.  I do like the hovering above the board effect though.  I'm sure that I'd still find it a boring game.



Welcome to the wonderful world of personal taste.

Speaking for myself, I am flabbergasted anyone could consider chess a "boring" game. But that's what personal taste is all about - people liking different things, that others might not enjoy. What a boring, sad old world it would be if everyone had exactly the tastes and hobbies.

Which brings me back to the point I keep thumping again and again - there is no right or wrong edition of D&D, and there is none AFAIC that is scientifically better than the others, only the one that YOU enjoy the most.


----------



## BroccoliRage

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> I agree with that, and I should revise what I said.  You need one reasonably articulate and literate person as DM, and the others don't have to be - although a decent education will enhance their enjoyment of the game.
> 
> 
> 
> Dyslexia doesn't stop you making sense of the 1e AD&D books either, though.  I have dyslexic friends who play that edition from choice.
> 
> Although they usually can't spell "dweomer".
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, I accept that:  AD&D wasn't published in Swedish.  I have a fair bit of sympathy for you there, because I have a German copy of Das Schwarze Auge and I do struggle to understand some of the passages.
> 
> But I don't expect the writers of Das Schwarze Auge to dumb down their German so that I'll understand it.
> 
> (As an aside, I must say that every Swedish person I've ever met in my life has spoken impeccable English.  Language skills in Sweden are one of your national strengths.)





Same experience here. Every Swede and Finn I have ever met (and there have been many) has spoken English with precision, many of them were able to speak with both American and British accents and dialects flawlessly. I would be surprised to encounter a Swede or Finn who had trouble reading English, given that so many I've met speak the language better than I do.


----------



## Thurbane

Keldryn said:
			
		

> I don't think it's a very well-designed adventure anyway.  I've got the module, I ran it a couple of times many years ago, and it's just chock full of "save or die" moments that pop out of nowhere.  The risk of unpredictable and immediate death in that module far outweighs any rewards gained within the Tomb.



Just for the record, everyone I know who played the 1E version of ToH agrees that it is basically the worst module ever written (Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is a not-so-close second). We often used to play it as a joke, rather than a serious adventure. It is really a poor example of 1E modules though, give me Against the Giants or Temple of Elemental Evil any day...


----------



## BroccoliRage

Keldryn said:
			
		

> Talk about comparing apples and... tomatoes.  We're talking about RPGs, not chess, and this is a pretty irrelevant diversion from the point being discussed.
> 
> But yeah, chess _is_ an intolerably boring game, but it doesn't have anything to do with the pieces being identical each time you play.





Chess is the OG wargame. RPG's were born from wargames.

And I have to diagree, I don't find it boring at all. I've been playing it since I was 9 years old, and to this day I still surprise myself. It's very interesting to see what other people's philosophy's on defensive/offensive strategy and play become when enacted. What a great game. I can kill a whole day playing chess.


----------



## MerricB

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> Chess is the OG wargame. RPG's were born from wargames.
> 
> And I have to diagree, I don't find it boring at all. I've been playing it since I was 9 years old, and to this day I still surprise myself. It's very interesting to see what other people's philosophy's on defensive/offensive strategy and play become when enacted. What a great game. I can kill a whole day playing chess.




It's a really great game, though I don't play it often.

I prefer games like _Caylus_. 

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

Ourph said:
			
		

> Different strokes I guess, but IMO taking those precautions is what "doing things right" is all about.  Rather than considering the opening of a door a "trivial task" I enjoy it that each door* in my games feels like a challenge to the players and requires the same type of consideration that daily spell selection or planning an attack might.  Treating every door as just a mundane portal seems like a waste of potential challenges and suspense to me.




How interesting. If I might ask, how much time does your group spend at each door, and how easy is it for them to determine that it's mundane or otherwise?

I like trapping doors or otherwise making them special. I find it enjoyable - but I don't do it to every door by a long shot. In general, it takes a simple Search check to determine that the door is special for the players (so we don't spend much game time on mundane doors), but what happens next can take more time if needed.

Cheers!


----------



## Ourph

Numion said:
			
		

> You're faulting 3E for losing what 1E has never had when someone alters the wealth they put out.




You keep trying to pick a fight where there isn't one to be had.    

I'm not faulting 3e OR 1e, I'm saying that the way they approach wealth by level is different. I'm also saying that in 3e changing wealth has an impact on other systems of the game in a way that doing the same thing in 1e does not, simply because, yes, in 1e the systems are less complex and in a lot of ways less maleable.  It's the difference between an electric hedgetrimmer and a pair of sheers.  The sheers may be less versatile and may, in fact, be less easy to use, but they are also a lot harder to break because they have fewer moving and interlocking parts (and if they do break, it's much easier to see what's wrong and how to fix it).


----------



## Ourph

MerricB said:
			
		

> How interesting. If I might ask, how much time does your group spend at each door, and how easy is it for them to determine that it's mundane or otherwise?
> 
> I like trapping doors or otherwise making them special. I find it enjoyable - but I don't do it to every door by a long shot. In general, it takes a simple Search check to determine that the door is special for the players (so we don't spend much game time on mundane doors), but what happens next can take more time if needed.
> 
> Cheers!




In a dungeon setting, every door gets at least the following treatment 1) listen to see if you can hear anything from the other side (multiple PCs can listen at once), 2) _Find Traps_ roll by the Thief 3) Quick exam of the door by the more intelligent members of the party to see if anything seems out of place.  This takes 1 turn of in-game time and about 30 seconds of actual time to resolve.  If the players actually find something interesting, we might spend 5 minutes to half an hour resolving the discussion back and forth depending on what they find out.

If it's just a trap, a _Remove Traps_ roll quickly takes care of the situation.  If it's a noise the players might spend several minutes discussing the import of that information.  If it's something truly unusual or compelling it might stretch into the half an hour range, but that's unusual and indicates that there is something pretty extraordinary about that particular door.  I would say, on average, there's a trap on 1 in 20 doors my PCs encounter, but there are interesting things for them to discover about a door (footprints leading in/out, a noise, a smell, a difference in construction, etc.) for about 1 in 5.

AFAIC a door in a dungeon represents "the unknown" and exploring "the unknown" is what most of my campaigns are about.  Some people might see what is behind the door as the "point" of adventuring, but IMO the difference between adventurers and your average fantasy-world person is that adventurers are the people who have the balls to open strange doors when they don't know what is behind them.  So making a big deal of that process doesn't seem like a waste to me at all, it seems like enjoying a naturally compelling part of the game.


----------



## MerricB

Ourph said:
			
		

> In a dungeon setting, every door gets at least the following treatment...




Thanks muchly! I don't have as many special doors (although some of them are pretty special), but it's very interesting to read how you deal with them.

Cheers!


----------



## Garnfellow

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Rule changes are not neccessarily bad.  Changing something fundamental just to make it easier on the players is.  One poster said something to the effect that a random dice roll should not result in a character death.  Taking the fear of pc death out of the game is basicly the same as lowering the rim to 8 feet, giving hitters 5 strikes, etc.  But please, if you have fun playing a game with no consequences for unwise  actions or unlucky rolls, go right ahead.  Without risk, there is no reward.




What's a fundamental mechanic, though? Is save-or-die really a fundamental mechanic to D&D? You compare avoiding save-or-die to lowering the basketball rim to 8 ft, but I see it more akin to adding a shot clock -- something intended to speed the game up and make it more enjoyable.

Ultimately, though, I think the very basic premise behind all your analogies -- that the D&D designers are making the game easier and easier for the whiny players -- is nothing but pure and total bunkum. People might fixate on the reduction of save or die effects, but the simple truth is, 3e out of the box is easily as deadly as any other edition out of the game, and probably much deadlier. Between having Str and Con scores, feats, and critical hits, there are more ways for a monster to kill a PC than ever before. I've killed more PCs in 3e than in all of 1st and 2nd edition combined.

Wasn't it you who once proclaimed WotC's 3e revision of Tomb of Horrors as having been Disneyized into some kind of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride? Well, I ran that sucker a month ago and had yet another TPK -- I think that was my 5th, and I've had at least one for each major edition of the game. The old dungeon felt just as deadly as it ever did. The biggest difference was that the WotC version didn't need to make up a bunch of saveless, no-precedent mechanics in order to make their revision a killer -- all they needed was that same, toothless 3e ruleset that is supposed to cosset the tender, frail players.


----------



## FireLance

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Rule changes are not neccessarily bad.  Changing something fundamental just to make it easier on the players is.  One poster said something to the effect that a random dice roll should not result in a character death.  Taking the fear of pc death out of the game is basicly the same as lowering the rim to 8 feet, giving hitters 5 strikes, etc.  But please, if you have fun playing a game with no consequences for unwise  actions or unlucky rolls, go right ahead.  Without risk, there is no reward.



The implicit assumption behind this line of argument is that PC death, or alternatively, permanent loss of equipment, or the acquisition of other permanent disadvantages such as the loss of body parts or ability scores, are the only meaningful negative consequences. I disagree with that premise. 

Almost by definition, any game of skill or chance needs to have a good result and at least one other result that is not as good. In a simple, two-person game, the results could be: you win/you lose, or you win/you draw/you lose. 

In an RPG, the scope of poor results can be broader: your friend dies, the BBEG escapes, a relic of Good is destroyed, a tyrant ascends to the throne, a plague breaks out, an innocent man is thrown into jail, etc. PCs do not need to die to experience failure, and even games in which the PCs are not at risk of death can be challenging and fun.


----------



## Thurbane

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I understand that the lowest common denominator needs to be catered to in order to _stay_ the lowest common denominator.  After all, higher expectations tend to lead to higher results.  But, then, I consider that the quality of the game is more important than the health of the hobby, or you basking in your own superiority.  Better the hobby stay worth being healthy, than be healthy but dull.  YMMV.
> 
> 
> RC



Very true, that.


----------



## JRRNeiklot

FireLance said:
			
		

> The implicit assumption behind this line of argument is that PC death, or alternatively, permanent loss of equipment, or the acquisition of other permanent disadvantages such as the loss of body parts or ability scores, are the only meaningful negative consequences. I disagree with that premise.
> 
> Almost by definition, any game of skill or chance needs to have a good result and at least one other result that is not as good. In a simple, two-person game, the results could be: you win/you lose, or you win/you draw/you lose.
> 
> In an RPG, the scope of poor results can be broader: your friend dies, the BBEG escapes, a relic of Good is destroyed, a tyrant ascends to the throne, a plague breaks out, an innocent man is thrown into jail, etc. PCs do not need to die to experience failure, and even games in which the PCs are not at risk of death can be challenging and fun.





Not the only consequences, but those are just as valid.  Losing a limb, your vorpal sword, etc are just as valid as negative consequences as taking 80 points of damage.  I like them more because plain 'ol damage is just boring.


----------



## JRRNeiklot

Garnfellow said:
			
		

> What's a fundamental mechanic, though? Is save-or-die really a fundamental mechanic to D&D? You compare avoiding save-or-die to lowering the basketball rim to 8 ft, but I see it more akin to adding a shot clock -- something intended to speed the game up and make it more enjoyable.
> 
> Ultimately, though, I think the very basic premise behind all your analogies -- that the D&D designers are making the game easier and easier for the whiny players -- is nothing but pure and total bunkum. People might fixate on the reduction of save or die effects, but the simple truth is, 3e out of the box is easily as deadly as any other edition out of the game, and probably much deadlier. Between having Str and Con scores, feats, and critical hits, there are more ways for a monster to kill a PC than ever before. I've killed more PCs in 3e than in all of 1st and 2nd edition combined.
> 
> Wasn't it you who once proclaimed WotC's 3e revision of Tomb of Horrors as having been Disneyized into some kind of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride? Well, I ran that sucker a month ago and had yet another TPK -- I think that was my 5th, and I've had at least one for each major edition of the game. The old dungeon felt just as deadly as it ever did. The biggest difference was that the WotC version didn't need to make up a bunch of saveless, no-precedent mechanics in order to make their revision a killer -- all they needed was that same, toothless 3e ruleset that is supposed to cosset the tender, frail players.




I'd be the first to claim my analogies are less than perfect.  Too much alcohol in my youth, perhaps.   

3e has few ways of killing anyone.  There's really only 4.  Damage.  Negative con.  Coup-de-grace, drowning.  Forgive me if I missed one.  It makes players less cautious.  Go ahead and drink that potion, if it's actually poison, you'll lose a few hits of con which will take the cleric all of one round to fix.  

And, yes I did say something to that effect about the revised ToH, though I don't think I mentioned Mr. Toad specifically, lol.  I stand by that statement as well.  Any idiot can make a killer dungeon with enough critters and traps to erode hit points.  It will never generate the fear and atmosphere of instant death or save or die effects, though.  I'm not suggesting these effects be prevalent, just that they should exist, though rarely.


----------



## Numion

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> 3e has few ways of killing anyone.  There's really only 4.  Damage.  Negative con.  Coup-de-grace, drowning.  Forgive me if I missed one.  It makes players less cautious.  Go ahead and drink that potion, if it's actually poison, you'll lose a few hits of con which will take the cleric all of one round to fix.




You missed the save-or-die effects. Sometimes it seems most of the PCs die to those effects. And the claims about D&D not being lethal are quite false. RttToEE alone cost my players 30 characters. Heck, there's even a TPK (or two) on the general discussion page of ENWorld _right now_.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

Ourph said:
			
		

> I think the main difference here is that because CR/EL/WBL/XP etc. are so tightly meshed in 3e a DM who wants to change one aspect (but not the others) needs to consider his modifications more carefully than he would with AD&D where that interaction isn't a consideration.  1e controlled wealth and level pretty consistently by making the gaining of treasure the main factor in gaining XP.  You really couldn't have an instance where you had a 10th level character who had never had two gold pieces to rub together because the mechanics of the game made GP and XP almost synonymous.  With 3e, the gaining of XP and treasure have become seperated, but keeping them at consistent levels is still important to the way the game functions, so 3e DMs have more to consider when making modifications.
> 
> In other words you're gaining the benefits of more detailed guidance and a more integrated system, but you trade that for the inconvenience of doing more work when you want to change some of the parameters without affecting the rest.




If true, this would be the first coherent argument I have ever seen on these boards that a game system is too integrated.  Unlike the mythological evidence that would supposedly point a finger at 3e (that is so popular to allude but is never ever explained), here we can see 1e is suffering from the very grievous fault that seems to cause some people such terrible consternation.

But I do not think this argument is true, at least you are wrong in every way that matters.

I actually do not care if I have the right amount of wealth for my level.  Not a bit.  I care whether I feel like my character is getting rewards that seem roughly commensurate when weighed against the risks.  (RPing rewards do count, but we are talking about filthy lucre here so I am not going to get into such details.)

The 3e guidelines directly address this issue.  They have a CR system that gives a pretty decent rough measure of risk.  The risk as measured by CR translates directly into XP.  Monsters and NPCs have suggested loot.  A randomish grabbag of defeated enemies yield a certain amount of loot.  That is summarized into a wealth guideline, so the DM can check the designers work or their own if he feels like it.  The DM can directly tweak things where it matters.

In 1e wealth an enemy yields is mostly decoupled from the actual risk.  Some monsters have little wealth but are still quite dangerous.  Dragons are very dangerous but yield very large quantities of wealth relative to their actual combat effectiveness.  NPC humanoid "Adventurer" types that are equipped sufficiently well to be genuinely dangerous to the PCs upstage even the dragon-shaped piggy banks in rewards relative to their combat effectiveness.

The net effect is that 1e has no meaningful relationship between risk and reward.  It is left to the DM to keep his hand on this dial at all times with no useful guidance from the rules.

So in the end, 1e is at least as fiddly as 3e, maybe even more so, but in a different dimension.  The difference is that 1e gives weak guidance in exactly the area that tends to directly impact player enjoyment.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Any idiot can make a killer dungeon with enough critters and traps to erode hit points.  It will never generate the fear and atmosphere of instant death or save or die effects, though.  I'm not suggesting these effects be prevalent, just that they should exist, though rarely.




You are still way off base.  With iterative attacks, Str bonuses for monsters, very strong monsters, and critical hits, we are not talking about the glacial speed of combat you may be used to from previous editions at all.

3e can "reward" tactical errors very quickly, very directly.

Furthermore, when it comes to spells or special effect attacks, PCs fail saves much more often.  If these effects were not toned down, the level of carnage would make most 1e modules look like kindergarten.


----------



## Hussar

Ourph said:
			
		

> The guidelines were used by the designers as part of the CR system (as were the standard 25 pt. buy stat array and the four PC party).  You can call them "optional" if you want, but what you are really saying is that WBL guidelines are "optional if you don't mind the CR system becoming essentially worthless to you".  IMO an "optional" part of the game isn't really optional if failing to use it means other parts of the game system stop working properly.
> 
> That said, I'm not opposed to WBL guidelines - I don't think they are a bad thing - I just think it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that AD&D's assumptions about equipment affect the way the game plays in the same way that 3e's assumptions do.  3e's assumptions are integral to the system whereas if AD&D considered the effect of equipment at all, it was as an abstract consideration where the main point is "too much is bad".




This is mistaken.  The CR guidelines were added AFTER the game was designed, not before.  This is a common misperception.  The game was designed and then playtested.  The CR and Wealth guidelines were the results of that playtesting.

These guidelines were not integral to the development of the system, they are the effects of the system as seen in thousands of hours of playtesting.  

The same goes for the 4 encounters/day paradigm.  This is explicitely NOT part of the 3e ruleset.  What the DMG says is that IF you have about 4 encounters per day with the APL=EL, then a fifth or six encounter is likely going to be lethal.  In other words, the 4/day thing is simply advice, not a rule in any shape or form.  If you read the actual text you'll see that it's intentionally vague because it will vary so significantly from campaign to campaign.



			
				BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> Chess is the OG wargame. RPG's were born from wargames.
> 
> And I have to diagree, I don't find it boring at all. I've been playing it since I was 9 years old, and to this day I still surprise myself. It's very interesting to see what other people's philosophy's on defensive/offensive strategy and play become when enacted. What a great game. I can kill a whole day playing chess.




Interesting.  A game that you enjoy and can play all day is a good game.  Kind of like CCG's for some people.


----------



## Thurbane

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> In 1e wealth an enemy yields is mostly decoupled from the actual risk.  Some monsters have little wealth but are still quite dangerous.



Darn those non-intelligent giant spiders for not carrying the correct change back in 1E, how thoughtless of them.   


> Dragons are very dangerous but yield very large quantities of wealth relative to their actual combat effectiveness.



A well played dragon could kick the tar out of most any party I was ever involved in with 1E, including some very high level ones. It's also obvious that dragons had what was arguably "excessive" amounts of loot due to their very nature and mythical precedent. Hardly surprising. I mean, Smaug was brought down by a lucky critical from an arrow, and look at the mountains of luvre he had stashed away.


> NPC humanoid "Adventurer" types that are equipped sufficiently well to be genuinely dangerous to the PCs upstage even the dragon-shaped piggy banks in rewards relative to their combat effectiveness.



Not sure what you're getting at here, but if you are implying that humanoids had to be loaded up with massive amounts of gear and magic to be a challenge, it was nothing I ever enountered firsthand. 1E generally relied on hordes of mooks with a few leader types rather than 1 heavily equipped foe. This, of course, varied by DM and adventure/setting.


> The net effect is that 1e has no meaningful relationship between risk and reward. It is left to the DM to keep his hand on this dial at all times with no useful guidance from the rules.



Sorry, but that's utter horse-puckey, not to mention entirely subjective. Every monster had a treasure type, and despite what you are saying, the vast majority were quite relative to the threat the creature presented, except in the case of non-intelligent creatures which obviously only had "incidental" treasure, or none at all.


> So in the end, 1e is at least as fiddly as 3e, maybe even more so, but in a different dimension.  The difference is that 1e gives weak guidance in exactly the area that tends to directly impact player enjoyment.



Again, entirely subjective.

I firmly believe that most of the people who are most vocally bashing 1E and/or 2E here are people who apparently played under some obviously lousy DMs. Have any of the early edition haters played under the same DM with 3.X rules and found a marked improvement, that could be attributed to the ruleset alone, and not to greater experience? I am genuinely interested.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> In 1e wealth an enemy yields is mostly decoupled from the actual risk.  Some monsters have little wealth but are still quite dangerous.  Dragons are very dangerous but yield very large quantities of wealth relative to their actual combat effectiveness.  NPC humanoid "Adventurer" types that are equipped sufficiently well to be genuinely dangerous to the PCs upstage even the dragon-shaped piggy banks in rewards relative to their combat effectiveness.
> 
> The net effect is that 1e has no meaningful relationship between risk and reward.




Absolutely.  This is one of 1e's many strengths over 3e.

In 1e, you cannot judge the likely reward from an encounter simply by its difficulty.  Therefore in 1e, effective players pick and choose their combats, and will hide from, negotiate with or even bribe certain foes rather than fighting them.  Another consequence is that in 1e, good reconnaissance is rewarded by relatively easy and profitable encounters, while poor reconnaissance is punished by challenging encounters for little reward.

There's certainly a tendency among some 3e groups to take the Rambo approach to gaming:  charge every enemy, often with minimal scouting first.  1e punishes this playstyle and I'm glad that it does.


----------



## Hussar

p&P said:
			
		

> There's certainly a tendency among some 3e groups to take the Rambo approach to gaming: charge every enemy, often with minimal scouting first. 1e punishes this playstyle and I'm glad that it does.




How?  When the PC's are so much more powerful than any opponent, how are 1e PC's punished for Rambo approaches?


----------



## FireLance

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Absolutely.  This is one of 1e's many strengths over 3e.
> 
> In 1e, you cannot judge the likely reward from an encounter simply by its difficulty.  Therefore in 1e, effective players pick and choose their combats, and will hide from, negotiate with or even bribe certain foes rather than fighting them.  Another consequence is that in 1e, good reconnaissance is rewarded by relatively easy and profitable encounters, while poor reconnaissance is punished by challenging encounters for little reward.
> 
> There's certainly a tendency among some 3e groups to take the Rambo approach to gaming:  charge every enemy, often with minimal scouting first.  1e punishes this playstyle and I'm glad that it does.



Actually, the only definite link between risk and reward in 3e is experience for overcoming a challenge, and even then the DM could deliberately pick a challenge that would be tougher for a specific party than its CR would indicate. A DM could likewise select opponents that don't provide much treasure.

It seems to me that regardless of edition, whether or not an encounter yields rewards commensurate with the risks is a matter of DM style. Similarly, whether a party gains any benefit from scouting, or is allowed to pick and choose which opponents to fight is also a matter of DM style. I fail to see how any of these factors had anything to do with the ruleset used.

I can only speak from personal experience, but my DMing style of selecting challenges that the PCs should be able to overcome, and providing what I thought were appropriate rewards for overcoming those challenges, has not changed very much since the time I started DMing BD&D for my younger brother to DMing 1e for my friends in high school to DMing 2e for my friends in college and for my current gaming group (who I met after starting work) to DMing after our conversion to 3e. All 3e has given me is a shortcut for determining what are appropriate challenges and how to reward the PCs.

In fact, I would argue that the 3.5e ruleset encourages scouting and preparation more than the 1e ruleset. There are rules for providing the PCs with information about the characteristics, strengths and weakness of the creatures they face (using Knowledge checks). How did the 1e ruleset encourage this?


----------



## Numion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Darn those non-intelligent giant spiders for not carrying the correct change back in 1E, how thoughtless of them.




They probably won't carry any change in 3E either - the EL/CR/wealth system is supposed to even out in course of one _adventure_. It doesn't mean that every monster was carrying around treasure. This is evident from all the published adventures, for example.



> I firmly believe that most of the people who are most vocally bashing 1E and/or 2E here are people who apparently played under some obviously lousy DMs. Have any of the early edition haters played under the same DM with 3.X rules and found a marked improvement, that could be attributed to the ruleset alone, and not to greater experience? I am genuinely interested.




That's the ticket: almost all complaints about 1E are actually complaints about the DM   That's pretty ingenious and convincing. You do understand the corollary? 

So let's just stick to the merits of the different systems, shall we?


----------



## Garnfellow

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> I'd be the first to claim my analogies are less than perfect.  Too much alcohol in my youth, perhaps.



I hear you, brother.



> 3e has few ways of killing anyone.  There's really only 4.  Damage.  Negative con.  Coup-de-grace, drowning.  Forgive me if I missed one.  It makes players less cautious.  Go ahead and drink that potion, if it's actually poison, you'll lose a few hits of con which will take the cleric all of one round to fix.



Let's assume, if only for argument's sake, that your statement is true -- that there _are_ fewer different ways of killing anyone in 3e. But those ways happen much more frequently, enough so that the lethality rates are approximately the same between editions. Dead is dead, in all editions.

Anecdotally, I have had somewhat higher casualties in 3e than I had in earlier editions; based on what I've read online it sounds like most other groups more-or-less have similar fatality rates in their 3e games. There are exceptions, for sure, but there have always been patsy DMs and killer DMs in every edition.

The bottom line, in my experience, 3e is not inherently safer than 1e. And my players certainly do not feel so invulnerable that they take silly in-game risks they would have avoided in earlier editions. If anything, I've found them to be _more_ cautious.



> And, yes I did say something to that effect about the revised ToH, though I don't think I mentioned Mr. Toad specifically, lol.



I would have sworn yesterday that it was in a EnWorld thread, but Google only turned up a post from the WotC boards. Do you post over there, too, as JRRNeiklot? Anyway, I thought it was a great line. Absurd, but great.



> I stand by that statement as well.  Any idiot can make a killer dungeon with enough critters and traps to erode hit points.  It will never generate the fear and atmosphere of instant death or save or die effects, though.  I'm not suggesting these effects be prevalent, just that they should exist, though rarely.



Surprisingly, the WotC designers very much agree with you. Save-or-die effects continue to have -- and should always have -- a place in game. And the only reason to make them rare(r) isn't to coddle players. As Mike Mearls puts it in his experimental redesign of the beholder:



			
				MikeMearls said:
			
		

> When used too often, save-or-die abilities are B-O-R-I-N-G. They're dull for both players and DMs.


----------



## Thurbane

Numion said:
			
		

> They probably won't carry any change in 3E either - the EL/CR/wealth system is supposed to even out in course of one _adventure_. It doesn't mean that every monster was carrying around treasure. This is evident from all the published adventures, for example.



That same argument could effectively be made in 1E then, which futher renders Ridley's assertion incorrect...


> That's the ticket: almost all complaints about 1E are actually complaints about the DM   That's pretty ingenious and convincing. You do understand the corollary?
> 
> So let's just stick to the merits of the different systems, shall we?



Sorry, but the majority of complaints I have seen about 1E in this thread seem to be based on (or caused by) bad DMing. A lot of what I have seen ascribed to shortcomings of the 1E/2E rules seems to me to be more of a case of plain old poor DMing than anything directly tied to the rules themselves...


----------



## Numion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> That same argument could effectively be made in 1E then, which futher renders Ridley's assertion incorrect...




How could you make that same argument in 1E? There's no baseline treasure / challenge ratio provided, so how could it even itself out in the span of a whole adventure?



> Sorry, but the majority of complaints I have seen about 1E A lot of what I have seen ascribed to shortcomings of the 1E/2E rules seems to me to be more of a case of plain old poor DMing than anything directly tied to the rules themselves...




And majority of the complaints I've seen about 3E in this thread seem to be based on (or caused by) bad DMing. But as you can see this is not going to be a very fruitful conversation.


----------



## Thurbane

Numion said:
			
		

> How could you make that same argument in 1E? There's no baseline treasure / challenge ratio provided, so how could it even itself out in the span of a whole adventure?



There is, actually. It's called a DM.   


> And majority of the complaints I've seen about 3E in this thread seem to be based on (or caused by) bad DMing. But as you can see this is not going to be a very fruitful conversation.



Funny thing is, I completely agree. The vast majority of problems that people have posted about ALL editions here are more directly related to poor DMing than the rules themselves. So what's not fruitful about that?   

As I have constantly kept repeating, I don't hate 3.X - it's a good system. But like every edition of D&D I've played, it has aspects I don't particularly like, and that I houserule.


----------



## Hussar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> *snip*
> 
> As I have constantly kept repeating, I don't hate 3.X - it's a good system. But like every edition of D&D I've played, it has aspects I don't particularly like, and that I houserule.




Which I think could likely be said for everyone in this thread.  Pretty much every game out there will have houserules.  

To me, the biggest difference between 1e and 3e with regards to houserules is 1e was far more trial and error, IME.  Because there were no wealth guidelines, no CR, etc, it was very difficult to judge how a change would affect the game.  Sometimes I got it right and the change was good, more often, I got it wrong and went back and changed it again.

I tend to get it right the first time more often in 3e.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Hussar said:
			
		

> How?  When the PC's are so much more powerful than any opponent, how are 1e PC's punished for Rambo approaches?




 

Did you play much 1e, Hussar?

The answers to your question are:

1.  The PCs are much more powerful than any individual opponent.  But in 1e, there are hordes of opponents... there's our 19 orcs -v- a second level party example, or the fact that by the Monster Manual, wights come in groups of 2d8.  

2.  Many of these hordes of monsters possess little or no treasure.  About 75% of the experience points in 1e are gained by recovering treasure, so they're best avoided rather than fought.

3.  1e dungeons have traps which kill you in completely arbitrary ways.  Sometimes there's a saving throw, but not always.

4. Therefore the Rambo approach results in a TPW, as it should.


----------



## jcfiala

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> 3e has few ways of killing anyone.  There's really only 4.  Damage.  Negative con.  Coup-de-grace, drowning.  Forgive me if I missed one.  It makes players less cautious.  Go ahead and drink that potion, if it's actually poison, you'll lose a few hits of con which will take the cleric all of one round to fix.




You missed a few:
A) Save-or-Die effects, such as disintegration
B) Negative levels.  If your Negative Levels >= Character levels, you are "instantly slain"
C) Magical disease - Mummy Rot, for instance, does inflict constitution loss, but it's harder to 'heal' the charisma loss and the spells that remove the curse before you can remove the disease require caster level checks.  You could argue that it's the same as con loss/negative con, but I think the greater difficulty of removing it makes it a little worse.
D) Being turned to stone.  It's fairly easy to come back from (Well, so is death), but if your party can't find you or if they're all dead/stone themselves, you're as good as dead.


----------



## Numion

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> 2.  Many of these hordes of monsters possess little or no treasure.  About 75% of the experience points in 1e are gained by recovering treasure, so they're best avoided rather than fought.




That's not the AD&D I remember playing. You get the XPs where you can - we purposefully _did_ get into fights we didn't need to. You know, the time honored tradition of clearing out dungeons (of monsters and treasure).

Can others pipe in whether they played 1E where they when possible avoided monsters? Because that's just so .. not D&D    

Maybe I now understand why the thread is titled "Selling out D&Ds soul". Because the soul has always been, for me at least, about killing monsters, taking the loot, and leveling up. It was like that from the first days I started slinging dice. Now, our games have gotten more sophisticated, the plots have evolved, there is real roleplaying, consequences for actions other than loss of numbers on character sheet, etc .. but the core is still the same. Hows and whys have changed, but it's still about that. So, if someones tradition has been something entirely else (_avoiding_ those sacks of exp.. um, monsters), it might indeed seem like the soul has been lost.

But my tradition of D&D, 3E fits to a t.


----------



## Ourph

Hussar said:
			
		

> This is mistaken.  The CR guidelines were added AFTER the game was designed, not before.  This is a common misperception.  The game was designed and then playtested.  The CR and Wealth guidelines were the results of that playtesting.
> 
> These guidelines were not integral to the development of the system, they are the effects of the system as seen in thousands of hours of playtesting.
> 
> The same goes for the 4 encounters/day paradigm.  This is explicitely NOT part of the 3e ruleset.  What the DMG says is that IF you have about 4 encounters per day with the APL=EL, then a fifth or six encounter is likely going to be lethal.  In other words, the 4/day thing is simply advice, not a rule in any shape or form.  If you read the actual text you'll see that it's intentionally vague because it will vary so significantly from campaign to campaign.




Whether the guidelines came before or after playtesting makes no difference, the fact is, the CR system is based on certain parameters.  If your game deviates from those parameters, you can't use the CR system as is.

If you "read the actual text" of my post you'll see I never said anything about 4 the encounter/day guidelines, I said the CR system assumes a 4 person party.  This is undeniable.  At least two of the designers are on record saying the basis of the CR system is a 4 person party.  Whether it's written into the rules makes no difference.  The rules are written around that assumption.


----------



## Ourph

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> But I do not think this argument is true, at least you are wrong in every way that matters.




As far as I can tell, I wasn't making an argument, I was making a factual statement about the way the rules work.  I don't get it.  You tell me I'm wrong then you give me a laundry list about why you don't like the way 1e does things.  Since the comment you quoted wasn't "Ridley's Cohort likes the way 1e does XP and wealth" I'm not sure how that disproves or even addresses any statement I made in my previous post.


----------



## Ourph

Numion said:
			
		

> Can others pipe in whether they played 1E where they when possible avoided monsters? Because that's just so .. not D&D




We absolutely play the game knowing certain monsters are treasure poor (the ones you would expect, like giant rats, spiders, vermin, etc. or other non-intelligent creatures) and focus on avoiding those creatures to reach the areas we know to be or suspect might be treasure rich.  This is the central theme of Gary's advice to players in the AD&D books, i.e. - have a goal, make a plan, avoid distractions, know when to quit while you are ahead.

Going after XP in AD&D by killing monsters is a low payoff bet.  To be worth any decent amount of XP a monster has to be really tough.  Gaining treasure is the easy way to gain XP and figuring out how to get the most treasure for the least risk is part of being a good player.

To my groups, AD&D has always been a treasure-hunting game, very REH Conan-esque in it's roots.  Our games are rarely about rescuing the kidnapped princess or destroying the evil overlord (unless there is cold, hard coin involved in doing so).  The basic campaign profile is, you go out seeking treasure, you get in trouble, you fight your way out - wash, rinse, repeat as needed.  It's worked for me for over 20 years of playing.


----------



## Ridley's Cohort

deleted


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Numion said:
			
		

> That's not the AD&D I remember playing.




Mmm... I suspect your DM may not have been following the Treasure Types or the Appendix A guidelines on placement of treasure, then.


----------



## Numion

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Mmm... I suspect your DM may not have been following the Treasure Types or the Appendix A guidelines on placement of treasure, then.




No, I think he was. I meant to say in my earlier post that we went after all the monsters we could in a given adventure (or otherwise - a lot of overseas travelling), even if there wasn't a great treasure to be had.

Besides, it's kinda metagamey to go after monsters with good treasure classes. "Hmm .. a giant spider is lousy on loot .. lets sidestep." I didn't know back then anything about treasure types. I just though maybe there was a previous adventurers carcass in the webs. We killed monsters, sometimes the loot was good, sometimes not. I wasn't in on the particulars.


----------



## Ourph

Numion said:
			
		

> Besides, it's kinda metagamey to go after monsters with good treasure classes.




I don't think it's metagamey to believe that a bandit lair will probably contain more valuable loot than a nest of giant rats.  Giant rats don't pillage towns or hold up trade caravans.  In fact, "let's kill that monster in the corner room that has no treasure and isn't bothering us because we'll get more XP" seems way more metagamey than acknowledging that most unintelligent monsters don't make it a habit of collecting jewelry or currency.


----------



## Numion

Ourph said:
			
		

> I don't think it's metagamey to believe that a bandit lair will probably contain more valuable loot than a nest of giant rats.  Giant rats don't pillage towns or hold up trade caravans.  In fact, "let's kill that monster in the corner room that has no treasure and isn't bothering us because we'll get more XP" seems way more metagamey than acknowledging that most unintelligent monsters don't make it a habit of collecting jewelry or currency.




Well .. I didn't see it as metagamey. We killed all the monsters in a lair anyway - so they couldn't come behind us as we proceed. That's just basic dungeoneering 101. And fun  

Besides, if you look at the 1E adventures, unintelligent monsters _do_ seem to collect monty haulish amounts of loot. Just like everyone else in those adventures


----------



## Lanefan

Numion said:
			
		

> That's not the AD&D I remember playing. You get the XPs where you can - we purposefully _did_ get into fights we didn't need to. You know, the time honored tradition of clearing out dungeons (of monsters and treasure).
> 
> Can others pipe in whether they played 1E where they when possible avoided monsters? Because that's just so .. not D&D



Those times we were too busy fighting each other, we tended to tell the monsters to go away and leave us alone.

Some other times we'd avoid encounters (or, more often, leave them till later) would be if we were under a serious time crunch e.g. the Princess dies tomorrow if you don't find the antidote tonight, or if we thought the enemy beyond our capability to deal with and thus we'd better just sneak past, or if for whatever reason we didn't want to alert the enemy to our presence...yet.

But yes, our usual MO consisted pretty much of "kill 'em all and let the gods sort 'em out".

Lanefan


----------



## Bregh

Ourph said:
			
		

> We absolutely play the game knowing certain monsters are treasure poor (the ones you would expect, like giant rats, spiders, vermin, etc. or other non-intelligent creatures) and focus on avoiding those creatures to reach the areas we know to be or suspect might be treasure rich.  This is the central theme of Gary's advice to players in the AD&D books, i.e. - have a goal, make a plan, avoid distractions, know when to quit while you are ahead.
> 
> Going after XP in AD&D by killing monsters is a low payoff bet.  To be worth any decent amount of XP a monster has to be really tough.  Gaining treasure is the easy way to gain XP and figuring out how to get the most treasure for the least risk is part of being a good player.
> 
> To my groups, AD&D has always been a treasure-hunting game, very REH Conan-esque in it's roots.  Our games are rarely about rescuing the kidnapped princess or destroying the evil overlord (unless there is cold, hard coin involved in doing so).  The basic campaign profile is, you go out seeking treasure, you get in trouble, you fight your way out - wash, rinse, repeat as needed.  It's worked for me for over 20 years of playing.




This post mirrors my experiences in O/OA D&D pretty much exactly over the last 24 years.

As always, others MMV, but in this instance, at least, Ourph and I are on the same page.

My Players are generally disgruntled when ambushed or Surprised by non-treasure type monsters, will go out of their way to avoid these pointless, resource-draining encounters, and will resolve them as quickly as possible (including retreat).

Certainly not all such encounters are treasure-poor, and sometimes among the scattered remains of prior victims there's a juicy bit of loot to be garnered, but in general, Players have the (IMO proper) attitude that battles with various animals, spiders, bugs, and most other mindless critters is a waste of resources and a good way to wind up with nothing to show for it.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Oh, please, Mr, Umpire, give me one more strike! Striking out is not fuuuuunnn. Make the pitcher throw it slower!
> 
> Let's lower the basketball goal, 10 feet is too high - I can't dunk!
> 
> Wah, wah, wah.




It's wierd that I see this post so close to the post how "no one's advancing an elitist attitude!" Along with fairly pompous remarks on the "lowest common denominator," I think evidence that some people think that they're just *better* than others is pretty well-established. 

I would argue that such an attitude is detrimental to the hobby because it excludes those who "aren't as good" in an attempt to preserve some icon of purity and justice. But D&D shouldn't be a country club where we can exclude "those types of people" that make us uncomfortable. It should be a game that everyone -- the whiny, the young, the selfish, the simplistic, the un-educated, the "unwashed masses" should  be able to enjoy if they have the predeliciton. Turgid prose and perceptably unfair rules will drive people away from the game, as it has driven many away before. 



> Maybe I now understand why the thread is titled "Selling out D&Ds soul". Because the soul has always been, for me at least, about killing monsters, taking the loot, and leveling up. It was like that from the first days I started slinging dice. Now, our games have gotten more sophisticated, the plots have evolved, there is real roleplaying, consequences for actions other than loss of numbers on character sheet, etc .. but the core is still the same. Hows and whys have changed, but it's still about that. So, if someones tradition has been something entirely else (avoiding those sacks of exp.. um, monsters), it might indeed seem like the soul has been lost.




I think that, through extensive market research, WotC found your experience to be fairly representative of the typical experience.

And I think anyone who feels that "D&D's soul" is in save-or-die effects or wording that renders rules opaque is taking a very narrow view of the spirit of the game.


----------



## Ourph

Numion said:
			
		

> Besides, if you look at the 1E adventures, unintelligent monsters _do_ seem to collect monty haulish amounts of loot. Just like everyone else in those adventures




I'm not sure which adventures you're talking about.  The ones I'm most familiar with (T1, B2, the G series, the A series) had the vast majority of treasure either in the possession of or placed by intelligent creatures.  

T1 Village of Homlet Spoiler Alert!

The bandits in the moathouse in T1 have a large haul of treasure, whereas the giant toads in the moat and the giant spider in the tower have almost none and what they do have is very difficult to find.  If you want to go around butchering every toad you kill you might occasionally find a gem, but the easiest, most obvious and least risky option is obviously to kill or drive off the bandits and take their treasure chests.


----------



## Numion

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I think that, through extensive market research, WotC found your experience to be fairly representative of the typical experience.




Doing lowly market research to find out what _the game_ is about? The true essence of _the game_ is so unique and special that it can't quantified in any way. That's what the elitist club would want us to believe, anyhow. Because making sense of it all would once again make it more accessible.



> And I think anyone who feels that "D&D's soul" is in save-or-die effects or wording that renders rules opaque is taking a very narrow view of the spirit of the game.




Church.


----------



## SuStel

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> I actually do not care if I have the right amount of wealth for my level.  Not a bit.  I care whether I feel like my character is getting rewards that seem roughly commensurate when weighed against the risks.




Let us not forget that one of the challenges of a good RPG is for the players to figure out when they are outclassed. All encounters should not have a measured level of wealth. A party should not waste its time on typical wandering monsters; these are to be avoided because fighting them is unlikely to yield any significant benefit.

A DM who is following the 3rd edition DMG too closely may fail to realize this.

P.S.: Ah, it looks like Papers & Paychecks already brought this up. Never mind.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Let us not forget that one of the challenges of a good RPG is for the players to figure out when they are outclassed. All encounters should not have a measured level of wealth. A party should not waste its time on typical wandering monsters; these are to be avoided because fighting them is unlikely to yield any significant benefit.




It can be, but it certainly doesn't have to be. In most of my games, for instance, "wandering monsters" are an impossibility because all encounters have a purpose and have been placed for a reason, to advance various story threads and represent characteristics about the world. I want my characters to be able to face these encounters, so I make sure that previous encounters have about the right wealth reward.


----------



## Mokona

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> all encounters have a purpose and have been placed for a reason, to advance various story threads and represent characteristics about the world.



Agreed, in my campaign there are no random encounters and no wandering monsters.  Everything serves a specific purpose for the story even if it's just getting everyone's blood pumping before we go home.


----------



## Ourph

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> It can be, but it certainly doesn't have to be. In most of my games, for instance, "wandering monsters" are an impossibility because all encounters have a purpose and have been placed for a reason, to advance various story threads and represent characteristics about the world. I want my characters to be able to face these encounters, so I make sure that previous encounters have about the right wealth reward.




To re-address a point I was trying to make earlier, do you...

A) Run your game in this style because that's the way the rules are set up and they force you to adopt this specific style?

or

B) Run your game in this style because it's your preferred style and the rules simply facilitate your preference?

Same question to you Mokona, if you'd be kind enough to answer.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> To re-address a point I was trying to make earlier, do you...
> 
> A) Run your game in this style because that's the way the rules are set up and they force you to adopt this specific style?
> 
> or
> 
> B) Run your game in this style because it's your preferred style and the rules simply facilitate your preference?




Quite definately B. Heck, the core rules encourage crafting a wandering monster table and give you an interval with which to roll random encounters for. Thankfully, it's easy enough, with the CR and WBL guidelines, to ignore that and simply select a monster that is appropriate for the challenge I want to give them (which can range anywhere from "mop up the orcish mooks" to "talk with the red dragon, because you will die horribly fighting it," to "great challenge with a tougher monster that you can still overcome, if you're clever and lucky").

But it's not just my preference, either. I do like random generation of challenges and have tried to DM with a more open-ended adventuring policy (you go places, stuff happens, repeat). I've just found that in the great experience in diverse groups that I've had, the method of "choose your own adventure" D&D is appreciated on a much greater level; that is, D&D with a storyline that the players can affect.


----------



## Ourph

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Quite definately B. Heck, the core rules encourage crafting a wandering monster table and give you an interval with which to roll random encounters for. Thankfully, it's easy enough, with the CR and WBL guidelines, to ignore that and simply select a monster that is appropriate for the challenge I want to give them.




So, purely hypothetically, if you switched to a system like AD&D where the random encounter is assumed and much more integrated to the system; where the rulebooks give the DM more resources for generating such encounters and deciding when they occur, would you say that would affect the way you approach random encounters in your current games?


----------



## Raven Crowking

FireLance said:
			
		

> The implicit assumption behind this line of argument is that PC death, or alternatively, permanent loss of equipment, or the acquisition of other permanent disadvantages such as the loss of body parts or ability scores, are the only meaningful negative consequences.





I don't think so.  I think that the implicit assumption behind JRRNeiklot's post was that these were _*acceptable*_ negative consequences, and the more that you limit what negative consequences are acceptable, perforce, you limit the dangers faced in the game.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Numion said:
			
		

> And majority of the complaints I've seen about 3E in this thread seem to be based on (or caused by) bad DMing. But as you can see this is not going to be a very fruitful conversation.





Ah, but has anyone claimed that 1e could magically turn poor DMs into adequate ones?  I think not.  Perhaps what we are learning here is that "3e makes poor DMs adequate" is another one of those Internet Myths.

 

RC


----------



## Numion

Ourph said:
			
		

> So, purely hypothetically, if you switched to a system like AD&D where the random encounter is assumed and much more integrated to the system; where the rulebooks give the DM more resources for generating such encounters and deciding when they occur, would you say that would affect the way you approach random encounters in your current games?




Isn't there a lot of stuff on random encounters in 3E? IIRC there is. Even going as far as to present two types: where EL distributed similar to adventures, and another for "status quo" random encounters, where, if some mountain is a dangerous place, the random encounters will be eg. CR 10-15 no matter what level the PCs are.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Numion said:
			
		

> Can others pipe in whether they played 1E where they when possible avoided monsters? Because that's just so .. not D&D




Houserule:  XP from monsters, role-playing, and cleverness (situational awards) only.  No XP for treasure.  You don't have to kill them, though, to get it.  You merely have to defeat the encounter (not too different from 3.X!).

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> It's wierd that I see this post so close to the post how "no one's advancing an elitist attitude!" Along with fairly pompous remarks on the "lowest common denominator," I think evidence that some people think that they're just *better* than others is pretty well-established.




No, it establishes that some are more willing to put in an effort, in order to gain more reward.  Whereas others prefer to get the same reward, regardless of effort put in.  

RC


----------



## Ourph

Numion said:
			
		

> Isn't there a lot of stuff on random encounters in 3E? IIRC there is. Even going as far as to present two types: where EL distributed similar to adventures, and another for "status quo" random encounters, where, if some mountain is a dangerous place, the random encounters will be eg. CR 10-15 no matter what level the PCs are.




I wouldn't say there is "a lot".  3e D&D certainly doesn't ignore the possibility of random encounters, but it also doesn't assume the use of random encounters the way that OD&D, B/X D&D or AD&D did.  There's a significant difference between the amount of space spent discussing and facilitating the use of random encounters in AD&D and the space spent covering the same subject in 3e.

Please note before posting any replies that the above statement isn't a value judgement.  I'm not "attacking" 3e for dedicating less focus to random encounters, nor am I "slamming" 1e for emphasizing them.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> So, purely hypothetically, if you switched to a system like AD&D where the random encounter is assumed and much more integrated to the system; where the rulebooks give the DM more resources for generating such encounters and deciding when they occur, would you say that would affect the way you approach random encounters in your current games?




Well, only in that it would take more than a glance at the statblock (more time and effort and work) to determine if I could toss a monster at a PC, and when estimating the level of challenge they could provide (low to high) it would be significantly more difficult.

Would I let AD&D's rules override what my group likes? I don't think any DM should! 



> No, it establishes that some are more willing to put in an effort, in order to gain more reward. Whereas others prefer to get the same reward, regardless of effort put in.




I don't have fun when I'm doing work, and I rarely get paid to design adventures, so why would I waste time and money on a game that made me work?

Work itself is no virtue, especially for entertainment. Work to a purpose can be, but me and four friends can have fun playing videogames or going to the movies, too, so there's no purpose in working on D&D. I pay money to be entertained, I don't pay money to do work.


----------



## Odhanan

I remember AD&D had some XP guidelines. These were called, not CRs and ELs, but... XPs. The way to determine the raw power of a monster was to just look at the amount of XP a character was earning from defeating it. That was an implied "CR" system right there, albeit more obscure than the present CR system, IMO. 

Also, the evaluation of the "easiness" to defeat monsters in this or that edition of the game when comparing them through the RAW is in my opinion completely irrelevant, since that solely depends on the DM and how s/he builds the adventures for the group (and obviously the intents behind it). It's a matter of particular practices, not general theory.

What could be said, in all fairness, is that the _manner_ in which the rules are presented changed drastically. What is considered a "challenge", whether it's easy or overwhelming, has been laid out more clearly in 3E. 

In AD&D, that was the province of the DM de facto since the challenge "system" was more opaque and not as detailed in its design intents as Third Ed's. What is considered a challenge or not *still* is solely the province of the DM. What changed is that now, there are clearer guidelines which obviously will challenge some opinions of various DMs out there. 

Hence the debates we see here.


----------



## MerricB

Ourph said:
			
		

> I wouldn't say there is "a lot".  3e D&D certainly doesn't ignore the possibility of random encounters, but it also doesn't assume the use of random encounters the way that OD&D, B/X D&D or AD&D did.  There's a significant difference between the amount of space spent discussing and facilitating the use of random encounters in AD&D and the space spent covering the same subject in 3e.




It's funny - AD&D leaves out the description of how to check for random encounter in a dungeon. BD&D has "every 2 turns, there's a 1 in 6 chance of a random encounter", but it's not in AD&D. Drove me mad looking for it.

Picking up the AD&D DMG, we find the following:
page 47 & 49: the description of determining outdoor encounters
page 174-179 - dungeon random encounters
page 179-180 - underwater random encounters
page 181-182 - ethereal & psionic random encounters
page 182-189 - outdoor random encounters (including random castles... love that table)
page 190-190 - waterborne/airborne random encounters
page 191-193 - city encounters

Picking up the D&D 3E DMG, we find the following:

page 79-81 - dungeon encounter tables
page 87 - sample forest encounter table
page 88 - sample temperate marsh encounter table
page 89 - sample temperate hills encounter table
page 90 - mountains encounters
page 91 - desert encounters
page 92 - plains encounters
page 95 - the description of determining outdoor encounters
page 96-98 - tables for stocking outdoor encounters
page 102 - urban encounters

However, you can find expanded tables are in the supplements:

_Forgotten Realms DM Screen_
- 32 page booklet, 31 pages of which are random encounter tables. The other is the title page. 

_Frostburn_
page 199-224 - random encounter tables for cold terrain (forest, hills, marsh, mountain, plains, aquatic, outsider)

_Sandstorm_
page 220-224 - random encounter tables for desert/waste terrain

_Stormwrack_
page 212-221 - random encounter tables for aquatic encounters (cold, temperate & warm, marine, lake & rivers, plus "lowerdark", "middledark" and "upperdark" - encounters in the Underdark!)

Cheers!


----------



## JRRNeiklot

jcfiala said:
			
		

> You missed a few:
> A) Save-or-Die effects, such as disintegration
> B) Negative levels.  If your Negative Levels >= Character levels, you are "instantly slain"
> C) Magical disease - Mummy Rot, for instance, does inflict constitution loss, but it's harder to 'heal' the charisma loss and the spells that remove the curse before you can remove the disease require caster level checks.  You could argue that it's the same as con loss/negative con, but I think the greater difficulty of removing it makes it a little worse.
> D) Being turned to stone.  It's fairly easy to come back from (Well, so is death), but if your party can't find you or if they're all dead/stone themselves, you're as good as dead.




Stone to flesh is not death.  A relatively low level spell, break enchantment, will reverse it.  A spell, I might add, that didn't exist in AD&D.  Yet another way 3e "coddles players.  

Disintegration is no longer a save or die effect.  In fact, in a recent campaign, I had a barbarian fail his save against disintegration and survive, albeit at negative hit points.


Mummy rot is justcon loss, though I agree, it's a bit worse than standard con loss.

Negative levels?  C'mon, after the first few levels, pcs rarely fail dc13 fortitude saves, even wizards.


----------



## JRRNeiklot

> Let's lower the basketball goal, 10 feet is too high - I can't dunk!






> It's wierd that I see this post so close to the post how "no one's advancing an elitist attitude!" Along with fairly pompous remarks on the "lowest common denominator," I think evidence that some people think that they're just *better* than others is pretty well-established.
> 
> I would argue that such an attitude is detrimental to the hobby because it excludes those who "aren't as good" in an attempt to preserve some icon of purity and justice. But D&D shouldn't be a country club where we can exclude "those types of people" that make us uncomfortable. It should be a game that everyone -- the whiny, the young, the selfish, the simplistic, the un-educated, the "unwashed masses" should be able to enjoy if they have the predeliciton. Turgid prose and perceptably unfair rules will drive people away from the game, as it has driven many away before.




So, you're saying a ten feet high basketball goal is unfair?


----------



## Lanefan

MerricB said:
			
		

> It's funny - AD&D leaves out the description of how to check for random encounter in a dungeon. BD&D has "every 2 turns, there's a 1 in 6 chance of a random encounter", but it's not in AD&D. Drove me mad looking for it.



I'm sure I've seen it in there somewhere...failing that, most adventure modules have a wandering monster check; it's easy enough to extrapolate from that.

Now I'll have to look...

Lanefan


----------



## BroccoliRage

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Well, only in that it would take more than a glance at the statblock (more time and effort and work) to determine if I could toss a monster at a PC, and when estimating the level of challenge they could provide (low to high) it would be significantly more difficult.
> 
> Would I let AD&D's rules override what my group likes? I don't think any DM should!
> 
> 
> 
> I don't have fun when I'm doing work, and I rarely get paid to design adventures, so why would I waste time and money on a game that made me work?
> 
> Work itself is no virtue, especially for entertainment. Work to a purpose can be, but me and four friends can have fun playing videogames or going to the movies, too, so there's no purpose in working on D&D. I pay money to be entertained, I don't pay money to do work.




You don't get joy from the feeling of accomplishment? You don't find the puzzles and questions that are posed by stretching your imagination entertaining?

My word, I hope you don't ever decide to produce role playing products. Those types of challenges constantly present themselves. If money is your sole motivator, your work will be quite uninspired. Tell me what you have designed and what your name is, so I know to avoid it. I don't mean to be insulting, but I definitely don't want to buy product from someone who's sole interest is making money. God knows there are enough bad modules and splat books out there not worth me converting, I like to know which ones to avoid.

For the record, I have seen WAY more elitism at ENWorld, which is a 3e website. If you even mention you like to play D&D, folks freak out. IF you state an opinion that even slightly casts a shadow on d20 fantasy, folks begin foaming at the mouth. The very nature of the question this thread asks implies a sort of elitism, (A system having a "soul"?), and every time someone has stated a reason they dislike d20 fantasy you have been all over them like white on rice. When you asked for concrete examples and were given them, you began babbling. 

You threw down the gauntlet when you asked the topic question. You basically formed Mortal Kombat: Grognard vs. d20. And you recieved some answers you didn't like. Your debate has poor form, if you need examples just look at your previous post and the fact that you wanted to debate a subject that is so relative to who's being asked as to be almost nonsensical. And then you keep insisting that those who disagree with you are wrong by citing things like market research. Because, as we all know, WOTC's market research has SO much to do with my personal opinions and experiences. That's apparent when they send me those stupid surveys in my email. When I reply that my favorite gaming system is 1e it immediately cuts off and tells me I'm not eligible for the rest of the survey. I've recieved like 14 of these, and now I just delete them. Sounds like I'm not their target audience. And therefore, they have nothing to do with me.

You can't argue subject matter like the thread topic effectively. And, to even begin to approach effective argument regarding this subject, you'd have to present some common ground. So far, only MerricB has presented any, and I commend him for the adult manner in which he has posted his disagreements. We can't argue the "soul" of D&D because:

A. it doesn't exist

B. if it did exist, it wouldn't be concrete. Rules arguments are more conrete, and naturally they are what will follow by those interested in actual discussion and exchange. 


KM, all I have really seen you doing so far is saying, "No, you're wrong. A wrong elitist who has been proven wrong by marketing research irrelevant to you. What rules do you say are better for what you want? No, you're wrong, those rules aren't better for what you want. They are philosophically inferior. Elitist."

I think you should sum up your point in it's entirety, because the subtleties must be completely lost on me.  :\ 

I'll continue jumping in occasionally and following the fracas to it's ultimate foolishness, because at least it provides a temporary diversion. But I think we ALL (3e players included) could stand to lose a little bit of the pretense and name calling.


----------



## jcfiala

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Stone to flesh is not death.  A relatively low level spell, break enchantment, will reverse it.  A spell, I might add, that didn't exist in AD&D.  Yet another way 3e "coddles players.




Break Enchantment can only be cast if someone knows where you are.  If no one does, you're effectively dead.  Besides, 'Reincarnate' is a relatively low-level spell as well



> Disintegration is no longer a save or die effect.  In fact, in a recent campaign, I had a barbarian fail his save against disintegration and survive, albeit at negative hit points.



  40d6 is nothing to sneeze about, I'll say, but there *are* save or die effects.  Phantasmal Killer is a 4th level spell which is save (twice) or die, Trap the Soul is a save or leave the game for a long time effect, and Symbol of Death is another save or die.




> Mummy rot is justcon loss, though I agree, it's a bit worse than standard con loss.
> 
> Negative levels?  C'mon, after the first few levels, pcs rarely fail dc13 fortitude saves, even wizards.




What dc13 effect are you thinking of?  I'm thinking of the fact that if someone is nth level, and they take n or more negative levels, they die right _then_ - no 'save in 24 hours to get it back', no more saving throws - dead.

Like it or not, negative levels and some spells are save or die effects - as is the 50 hp in one wound save - it may not be easy for 8th level characters to fail a DC 15 Fortitude save, but they *can* fail it if they roll a 1 on the die.


----------



## Numion

JRRNeiklot said:
			
		

> Negative levels?  C'mon, after the first few levels, pcs rarely fail dc13 fortitude saves, even wizards.




That's the save to see if you get the level loss after 24h. You can still die if you get negative levels equal to your character level. That has no save. 

I never got that disintegrate nerf, BTW. But then again I'm a 3.0E grognard.


----------



## Numion

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> My word, I hope you don't ever decide to produce role playing products. Those types of challenges constantly present themselves. If money is your sole motivator, your work will be quite uninspired. Tell me what you have designed and what your name is, so I know to avoid it. I don't mean to be insulting, but I definitely don't want to buy product from someone who's sole interest is making money. God knows there are enough bad modules and splat books out there not worth me converting, I like to know which ones to avoid.




Someone has his dicebag in a wad. Relax. He wasn't talking about that, you're safe from accidentally buying an RPG supplement produced with questionable morals   



> But I think we ALL (3e players included) could stand to lose a little bit of the pretense and name calling.




Lead by example, pretty please?


----------



## FireLance

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I don't think so.  I think that the implicit assumption behind JRRNeiklot's post was that these were _*acceptable*_ negative consequences, and the more that you limit what negative consequences are acceptable, perforce, you limit the dangers faced in the game.



That's certainly true, but that doesn't necessarily make the game any less challenging or enjoyable. What if players have more fun when there is less danger of death or other permanent consequences? This isn't like eating broccoli or brussel sprouts. An increased risk of dying in the game doesn't develop moral fiber or make you a better person. Some people may not enjoy playing or running such a game, but that doesn't make it bad.


----------



## Hussar

PapersAndPaychecks said:
			
		

> Did you play much 1e, Hussar?
> 
> The answers to your question are:
> 
> 1.  The PCs are much more powerful than any individual opponent.  But in 1e, there are hordes of opponents... there's our 19 orcs -v- a second level party example, or the fact that by the Monster Manual, wights come in groups of 2d8.
> 
> 2.  Many of these hordes of monsters possess little or no treasure.  About 75% of the experience points in 1e are gained by recovering treasure, so they're best avoided rather than fought.
> 
> 3.  1e dungeons have traps which kill you in completely arbitrary ways.  Sometimes there's a saving throw, but not always.
> 
> 4. Therefore the Rambo approach results in a TPW, as it should.




Started AD&D in 1980.  Played through an awful lot of 1e modules including GDK, A series, Homlet, Ravenloft, Isle of the Ape, Cult of the Reptile God and that one in the jungle with the hidden temple that I CANNOT REMEMBER THE NAME OF..  ahem.  

So, yeah, I played me a fair bit of 1e.  You talk about 19 orcs.  But, that's vs 6-8 PC's.  Plus, apparently an addtional 5 or 10 henchmen and another dozen hirelings.  How is that a threat?  

Even without the extra redshirts, 8 PC's would blow through those orcs like tissue paper.  If the fight started at range, the party would drop 8 in the first round from bowfire.  In melee, the wizard drops up to 16 of them with a single sleep spell.  No saving throw.  Poof, end of fight.  

I have never ever seen a group leave something unkilled in an adventure.  I'm sure it happened, but, I've never seen it.  After all, whatever that critter was may just have something hidden under a flagstone or some such thing.  Waste resources?  How?  The creatures were obliterated so quickly that no resources were used.  

There's a reason that Greyhawking a dungeon is a very old gaming term.  It's not like scouring every square inch is a new idea.  Good grief Gygax and crew INVENTED the bloody idea.  Taking marbles into the halls to test for levelness?  Who in their right mind left something behind?

But, again, this gets to the schitzo nature that I talked about earlier.  The DMG says to avoid conflicts and get on with the goal.  But, many modules had no goal other than kill everything that moves.  That pretty much defines Against the Giants.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Well, only in that it would take more than a glance at the statblock (more time and effort and work) to determine if I could toss a monster at a PC, and when estimating the level of challenge they could provide (low to high) it would be significantly more difficult.
> 
> Would I let AD&D's rules override what my group likes? I don't think any DM should!




Totally misunderstanding the purpose of wandering monsters in 1e, there.

They're there to reward skilled play (or more accurately, to punish poor play).  The logic is very simply -- the more time you waste, the more likely you are to meet a wandering monster.  Parties which don't waste time won't meet many.

Since 1e wandering monsters rarely have treasure, intelligent players tend to distract them, bribe them or hide from them wherever possible.


----------



## Hussar

Or, conversely, DM's play in modules where random encounters frequently ARE carting around treasure that makes it worth your while to kill them.  Never mind that a wandering couple of creatures are so much easy xp that it makes sense to kill them anyway.

Just a thought about inspiration.  Upthread, there's a bit by TheShaman that AD&D is not a generic fantasy game.  That AD&D was created specifically to cater to a certain campaign style and setting - presumably a pseudo-Middle Earthy sort of place.  Or, perhaps Arabian adventures since TheShaman lumps 1001 Arabian Nights in with Tolkein despite their sharing pretty much nothing thematically or culturally considering one is modern Heroic Fantasy and the other is myth and legend.

I couldn't disagree more with this.  A brief tour through the books puts lie to this.  Let's start with the 1e Dieties and Demigods.  Great book.  I remember it fondly.  My favourite parts were the Melnibonean and Cthulu mythologies as well as the Nehwon myths.  In other words, borrowing from Sword and Sorcery (a sub genre of Heroic fantasy admittedly) and Gothic Horror which is competely separate from Heroic fantasy.  

Now, lets saunter over to the Monster Manual where we find Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's monster remade as the Flesh Golem, B grade Monster Movie critters like the Black Pudding, Japanese inspired creatures like the Ogre Mage, creatures created specifically for dungeon crawling like the Gelantenous Cube and the Piercer and more Gothic Horror Cthulu-ness in the Mind Flayer.

After that, let's look at the DMG, particularly the magic items section where we have the Apparatus of Kwalish (one of my personal fav's), which is about as magictech as you can possibly get, as well as one of the best parts of 1e, the Artifacts section where you have the Machine of Lum the Mad.  Pure SF themes.

Penultimately, there's the PHB, where you have the Monk, pulled straight from the character of Kane and Kung-Fu.  Thirty years later, people are still arguing whether it belongs in the game or not.

Then, there's stories from EGG's own game where he had sent players to Barsoom to adventure.  Never mind that modules have pulled from all sorts of sources like SF in White Plume Mountain, Victorian England in Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, Dracula in Ravenloft, and, while not AD&D, A. C. Doyle in Isle of Dread.

AD&D has always been a kitchen sink of fantasy.  Anything that was popular and remotely related to the genre got sucked in and statted up.  If J. K. Rowlings had written in 1972, we would be arguing right now that WOTC's decision to let wizards cast without wands had sucked the soul out of the game.


----------



## The Shaman

Hussar said:
			
		

> Just a thought about inspiration.  Upthread, there's a bit by TheShaman that AD&D is not a generic fantasy game.  That AD&D was created specifically to cater to a certain campaign style and setting - presumably a pseudo-Middle Earthy sort of place.  Or, perhaps Arabian adventures since TheShaman lumps 1001 Arabian Nights in with Tolkein despite their sharing pretty much nothing thematically or culturally considering one is modern Heroic Fantasy and the other is myth and legend.
> 
> I couldn't disagree more with this.



Imagine my surprise.

You missed my point, so I'll restate it. Gygax, Arneson, _et cetera_ pulled in the stuff they liked from the books and films they enjoyed and created something that gave them the opportunity to do the things they thought were cool. Remember, _Dungeons and Dragons_ was released in 1974 after years of "playtesting" these elements. 1e _AD&D_ wasn't even on the horizon at that point - and _OD&D_ was six years before _Deities and Demigods_.

(By the way, I didn't say that _AD&D_ wasn't intended as generic fantasy - go back and reread post 816 closely, and please try not misquoting me next time.)

And yes, the Arabian Nights were very much a part of the mythological source material for the original game - djinni, efreet, rocs, flying carpets, and thieves (Aladdin) all reflect Middle Eastern myths and legends, and all predate 1e as a part of _OD&D_ if memory serves. (I don't have my original books and supplements any more to whip out a handy reference, I'm afraid.)


----------



## MerricB

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Remember, _Dungeons and Dragons_ was released in 1974 after years of "playtesting" these elements. 1e _AD&D_ wasn't even on the horizon at that point - and _OD&D_ was six years before _Deities and Demigods_.




Supplement IV: Gods, Demigods and Heroes is the precursor to Deities and Demigods - it basically has just the stats without descriptions. It was released in 1976, two years after oD&D started being published.

Cheers!


----------



## BroccoliRage

Questionable morals aren't the problem. Uninspired work in the creative realm is always crap.

Lead by example? Cite an example and I'll clarify.


----------



## Hussar

> You missed my point, so I'll restate it. Gygax, Arneson, et cetera pulled in the stuff they liked from the books and films they enjoyed and created something that gave them the opportunity to do the things they thought were cool. Remember, Dungeons and Dragons was released in 1974 after years of "playtesting" these elements. 1e AD&D wasn't even on the horizon at that point - and OD&D was six years before Deities and Demigods.




No, I didn't miss your point.  You have repeatedly stated that the writing style of the 1e was somehow superior to current styles.  That plain English explainations of rules is inferior to convoluted and wordy styles.  That by using plain English, the game somehow panders to the lowest common denominator.  After all, the inspirations for 1e were Tolkein and company, so, the writing style of the game should appeal to those who jones on that style.

The problem with that is that the inspirations for D&D were drawn from every possible source they could get their hands on.  From Tolkein all the way down to the Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Yes, some of the inspirations were high literature, but, a large number of them certainly weren't.

There's a problem with this elitist attitude though.

On one side people complain that 3e is pandering to the lowest common denominator.  That by using plain speach we've lowered the bar and turned the game very bland.

On the other side people complain that 3e is far too complicated to run and too much work.

So, which is it?  Is 3e too complex or too simple?  

As far as looking at the rules section for problems with the rules, I would point out that 3e has more publications by a large margin than 1e ever saw.  Yet, the problems are almost universally corner cases of the "can my monk take improved natural weapon" kind rather than every other group in the area using a completely different initiative mechanic.  Or simply dropping very large swaths of the rules in search of simplicity or coherence.

Just to illustrate my point, as I write this, the following ten topics are being discussed on the Rules board:


Can You Empower Claws of the Beast?
Prestige classes and multiclassing XP
How do you run surprise?
Ledgendary Artisan question
Can you voluntary lower the Save DCs as you cast a spell?
Why aren't potions labeled?
Fox's cunning and oozes?
Spell Penetration or Arcane Mastery: Which is better?
Some feats for flail users?
Gestalt Mulitclassing?

Let's see, 10 topics, half of which are outside of core, two that aren't even really questions about the rules.  Three actual questions regarding core - casting Fox's cunning on an ooze, XP awards and PrC's and Lowering Save DC's.  I'm sure that any of those three would come up far more often than rolling initiative.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Hussar said:
			
		

> So, which is it?  Is 3e too complex or too simple?




It's not too complex, it's too detailed and too slow in play.


----------



## The Shaman

Hussar said:
			
		

> No, I didn't miss your point.  You have repeatedly stated that the writing style of the 1e was somehow superior to current styles.



No, that's not what I stated at all - again, either your misread my post or you are willfully misquoting me.

Here's exactly what I wrote, from post 689:







			
				The Shaman said:
			
		

> His evocative language maps to the game's source material. IMO this is why so many gamers write fondly about "1e flavor": because reading the rule books felt like reading a fantasy novel, not a tech manual.



At no point did I say that the 1e writing is "superior" to anything - I said that the two styles are different from one another, and that many gamers like the style of the 1e rules.

There's nothing I can do about you misquoting the rules except offer more corrections, but I will ask you to take more care in how you represent what I've written in my posts.


----------



## Thurbane

I'm seeing a lot of that in this thread, on both sides. People are reading any examples of why an individual prefers edition X as a direct assault on edition Y.

The only time I have really got annoyed with anyone in this thread is when they claim that older editions were unplayable and/or unfun, which was blatantly untrue - otherwise it wouldn't have sold a fraction as well as it did (note: I am aware of the irony of this statement considering some of my previous comments about sales not equalling better product   ).

But from my own firsthand experience playing 1E and 2E for well over 15 years with 20 or more people, I only encountered one who didn't like the game after one session and decided not to come back. Others gradually fell off due to other commitments, until I'm left with a core of 5 or so of us now - but that one guy was the only one who walked because he didn't like the game itself.


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

Hussar said:
			
		

> On one side people complain that 3e is pandering to the lowest common denominator.



One argument that is very commonly given in support of 3E is that it "lowers the barrier for entry" for DMs, or that it makes "poor DMs into adequate DMs" by supplying the necessary rules/detail for consistency, or that it "protects the players from a bad DM" by supplying rules that prevent "arbitrary DM judgments." IMO, that's a more significant indicator of the "lowest common denominator" approach than the language used.  

(While I agree the language used in 3E is plain, simple, and perfectly adequate, I prefer the more colorful and evocative approach used in the 1E rules.  I like the Gygaxian prose.  I do wish some of the 1E rules had been better designed or defined, though -- e.g. initiative).



> On the other side people complain that 3e is far too complicated to run and too much work.  So, which is it?  Is 3e too complex or too simple?



At low levels, the 3E approach works okay for me.  It's not too complex, it's just detailed and "rules-comprehensive."  As the levels go up, I find that 3E's detailed and crunchy approach becomes more unwiedly; things start to bog down.  (YMMV)

:shrugs:  Like many, here, I've been DMing for several decades.  At this point, I just don't need (or want) the level of detail and crunch that 3E provides.  I don't need the rules to provide consistency, so I don't like the added bookkeeping, etc. that comes with more rules.  I like to exercise "DM judgment"; it's part of the fun of the game, for me.  I don't consider 1E perfect, by any means, but it's a better fit for me than 3E is, in most cases.  Actually, 1E isn't the best fit for me, either.  My ideal would be a mix of 1E and B/X rules, with clear rules presented in High Gygaxian style.  I can do that with house-ruled B/X, or house-ruled 1E.  The Basic Fantasy system fits me pretty well, rules-wise.  So does Castles & Crusades.  Other games that I've played and enjoyed over the years (e.g. RoleMaster, 3E) are not a great fit, at this point.


----------



## Hussar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I'm seeing a lot of that in this thread, on both sides. People are reading any examples of why an individual prefers edition X as a direct assault on edition Y.
> 
> The only time I have really got annoyed with anyone in this thread is when they claim that older editions were unplayable and/or unfun, which was blatantly untrue - otherwise it wouldn't have sold a fraction as well as it did (note: I am aware of the irony of this statement considering some of my previous comments about sales not equalling better product   ).
> 
> But from my own firsthand experience playing 1E and 2E for well over 15 years with 20 or more people, I only encountered one who didn't like the game after one session and decided not to come back. Others gradually fell off due to other commitments, until I'm left with a core of 5 or so of us now - but that one guy was the only one who walked because he didn't like the game itself.




Y'know what?  I'm probably very guilty of what you are talking about and for that I appologise.  My experiences pretty much exactly mirror your own, so there must have been something I liked about older editions.    Honestly, it's not that 1e or 2e are unplayable or unfun.  They are neither.  I had loads of fun with both versions.

I have loads of fun with 3e.  Yes, I do believe that plain English writing and comprehensive rulesets lower the barrier to DMing.  Not to play.  As a player, none of the three editions are terribly more difficult or easy.  The number of players stays the same, but, the number of DM's increase.  To me, that can only be a good thing.


----------



## Hussar

As usual, someone else is saying what I've been trying to say much better than me.  Over in the DM's Fiat thread, Buzz said the following:



			
				Buzz said:
			
		

> What I have gathered from this thread, Monte's most recent article in Dungeon, the DMG, DMG2, what I've seen of Dungeon Master for Dummies, and the host of articles on DM'ing I've read over the years is this:
> 
> Running D&D is about the art of using DM power responsibly, consistently, and fairly, i.e., always making sure that the players have a choice. So, to back away from the side-trek I took us on earlier: Yes, fiat is part of D&D. Especially outside of combat, the game can't move forward without it.
> 
> So, what makes a DM "good" or "bad" is their understanding and application of the above, and the players' reaction towards it. Ergo, D&D is very dependent, IMO, on the people at the table.
> 
> As I've seen many times IRL and online, peoples' conception of "what D&D is" or "how D&D works" will vary wildly depending on that mix of people. My point about Burning Wheel and similar games was how that variance is often diminished in games with more focused, less-fiat-dependent systems.
> 
> I've found that I enjoy D&D the most when the DM is sticking pretty closely to the rules as-written, and using their power of fiat to enhance the core game D&D describes: fighting and looting in interesting locales. The further a group deviates from this core game, especially when the rules start taking a back seat to DM fiat, the more I find myself feeling unsatisfied.
> 
> (This is why I really like finding rules add-ons that flesh out some of the non-combat stuff, like Dynasties & Demagogues debate rules, or Affiliations from PHB2, and so on. Ditto actually making use of social skills like Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive, etc. These make me feel a lot more comfortable when the game strays away from the battlemat.)




Which is what I was trying to get at before with the idea that comprehensive rulesets make poorer DM's better.  That should be ammended to better for me.  With a more comprehensive ruleset, the DM doesn't have to come up with rules to cover more actions.  Assuming of course that the RAW actually works (and I've played more than a few games where that's not a given), a bad DM can simply lean on the rules to run the game.

That's why I feel that 3e helps people to become better DM's.  I'm firmly of the opinion that there are at least as many bad DM's out there as good.  The good DM's don't really need any help because, well, they're good DM's.  So, how about helping out the other half of the gamer population?

Is that pandering to the lowest common denominator?  Perhaps.  I wouldn't phrase it in such negative terms since the ruleset is geared to helping such a small fraction of the gamer population, namely DM's.  Anyone who's DMing is already a step and a half above any regular gamer anyway.


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> Y'know what?  I'm probably very guilty of what you are talking about and for that I appologise.  My experiences pretty much exactly mirror your own, so there must have been something I liked about older editions.    Honestly, it's not that 1e or 2e are unplayable or unfun.  They are neither.  I had loads of fun with both versions.



No problem, I'm glad to hear that you did enjoy older editions.   


> I have loads of fun with 3e.  Yes, I do believe that plain English writing and comprehensive rulesets lower the barrier to DMing.  Not to play.  As a player, none of the three editions are terribly more difficult or easy.  The number of players stays the same, but, the number of DM's increase.  To me, that can only be a good thing.



I really enjoy 3.5 as well (I never actualy played 3E), and I can honestly see that it is more clearly written and concise in many areas that earlier editions were. I also agree that getting more potential DMs interested in the game can be a good thing.

The fact that I find the 3.5 rulebooks a little too "clinical", and not as evocative as, say, 1E, is purely a matter of personal taste, and not a failing of 3.5 as such.


----------



## Numion

Thurbane said:
			
		

> The fact that I find the 3.5 rulebooks a little too "clinical", and not as evocative as, say, 1E, is purely a matter of personal taste, and not a failing of 3.5 as such.




C'mon, they got mutant sea bass. _Mutant sea bass!_


----------



## Raven Crowking

FireLance said:
			
		

> That's certainly true, but that doesn't necessarily make the game any less challenging or enjoyable. What if players have more fun when there is less danger of death or other permanent consequences? This isn't like eating broccoli or brussel sprouts. An increased risk of dying in the game doesn't develop moral fiber or make you a better person. Some people may not enjoy playing or running such a game, but that doesn't make it bad.





I am curious how fewer negative consequences for failure could fail to make the game less challenging.  That seems like a pretty obvious relationship to me.

Your point about some players having more fun in less challenging games is certainly valid.  Surely, though, you can see that for some people meeting a harder challenge is more fun than meeting an easier one?  Both groups want challenges that they have a reasonable chance of beating, but they define "challenges", "reasonable chance", and potentially even "beating" in different ways.

This is true even within a given edition.  Some of us cut our teeth on slaying the monsters we could, while others avoided the monsters and went for the treasure.  Some of us encountered monsters based upon their frequency within a given terrain, others tried to measure what the PCs were capable of defeating (effectively using Monster Levels based of XP as an early CR system).  Some of us could think of only one use for a rust monster; others were creative with the beasties.

The time you want to invest in any given activity is, of course, a purely personal matter.  So is the amount of effort, and the level of challenge you wish to face.  A person who only enjoys playing chess with players worse than himself is unlikely to enjoy facing a grandmasters tournament, but most people who play chess IME like to play against people who are reasonably challenging, so as to have a chance to grow and develop their own game.

D&D (any edition) is a game about overcoming challenges.  It is reasonable to assume that players of that game, therefore, want to overcome challenges.  It is my overwhelming experience, having played with hundreds of players in six US states and one Canadian province over a period of over 25 years, that players are more satisfied when they believe that they have a real chance of failure, and when they believe that failure has real (in a game sense), permanent consequences.

When 2e came out, you may recall, there was a spate of DM advice that effectively said "Fudge the dice so that the players succeed" and "When the dice would say that a PC dies, have something else happen instead".  Fool that I am, I tried that advice.  The end result was that satisfaction with the game dropped like a fighter falling into a 100-foot pit, and there were nasty sharp spikes at the bottom, too. 

I have run games for as few as 1 player, and for as many as 26 (and never will I do that again!).  I have run the Blue Box, BD&D, 1e, 2e, 3e, and 3.5e, as well as a smattering of other rpgs.  In all of those games, for all of those editions, for all of those people, I would say that well over 9 out of 10 players have preferred a real chance of success, and a real chance of death, over hand-holding.  Because, by far, most of those people could have been playing in another, less challenging, game, and were not. 

Obviously, there is a cut-off point here, too.  At some point, the challenges become too steep, and the rewards are not worth the effort.  Finding that "sweet spot" -- where the reward is worth the risk, and the risk is as thrilling as you can make it -- is the real goal, in any edition.

And yes, KM, I am willing to work really hard in order to meet that goal as closely as I can.  In part, I do this by shuffing the decision to the players ("Here's what you know; which of these challenges do you wish to pursue?") and in part I do this by letting the dice fall where they may -- and making sure that the players know it.  

Again, this can be done in any edition.  Some might even find things like the CR system aiding them in creating this effect....in fact I personally use the CR system to aid in guaging how a particular area might be created, and what might be found therein.  I used the monster levels/XP in 1e the same way, with the same ease (because, really, how hard is this to guage by eye in 1e?), and with the same effects.  

I do think that the 3e system is good.  I also think that the flavour and attitude of 1e is better.  For my game, I mesh the two.  And I tweak both as much as I like.  I am the DM; I get to do that.  But please do not tell me that I have to make things easier for the poor players, or that rust monsters are too scary for the shiny-metal guys to cope with, or that I have to change the rules of the game world to allow some poor schmoe to play a warforged ninja.  It isn't going to happen.

And please don't tell me that 1e wasn't a playable game.  It was, and it is.  I got years of happiness out of those books, and I still use them to this day.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> On one side people complain that 3e is pandering to the lowest common denominator.  That by using plain speach we've lowered the bar and turned the game very bland.
> 
> On the other side people complain that 3e is far too complicated to run and too much work.
> 
> So, which is it?  Is 3e too complex or too simple?





Using plain speech to describe rules effects is fine; using evocative language to describe what those rules are supposed to mean within the terms of an adventure or the game world, however, is equally important.  Glad to see the ruleset.  Yawning when I read it.  These two things are like peanut butter and chocolate, when they ought to be peanut butter cups.

Microsoft Word has a program function that allows you to determine the reading level required to read any given passage that you might type into it.  It will give you this information (which, let us hope, we take with a grain of salt) in terms of grade level.  At what grade level, on average, should D&D books be written?

On one hand, you can write them at the level the material requires.  I.e., if you need to use arcane words because those are the best words to both describe an effect and evoke the mood that effect is intended to evoke, you use those words.  OTOH, you could instead pick a grade level and "dumb down" anything that exceeds that grade level to the best of your ability.

1e reads like it could have used the services of an editor.  3e reads like it could have used the services of a writer.  I would dearly love 4e to have the services of both.

3e made the generation of NPCs and stat blocks far more complex than they needed to be, and drowned the rules in combat options that make certain players hesitant to commit to any action in a given combat round.  3.5 ties combat into a grid far more firmly than it should have done so, IMHO.  I also do not care for the idea of long creatures filling square spaces....ugh!

OTOH, the craft rules for 3e are too simple, and not well thought out.  I have the same problem with the rules for crafting magic items; they are both too simple and too bland.  Various racial types have lost the limitations that made picking a human character desirable, and they have lost all of the flavour that they once had by virtue of mechanics.  3e came out with a wonderful skill system, but it is still basically a non-weapon proficiency system; where are the weapon skills?  The characters are also far too dependent on their equipment.  There ought to be rules that include clear benefits for interacting with, and becoming part of, society (recent books have made some headway with this).  Giving creatures "types" was a stroke of genius....but would have been better if the types were more distinct.

I have house rules that cover ever problem I mention in the preceding two paragraphs, btw.  For example, racial levels (thanks, Monte!) mean that your race counts again, as do some race/class limits.  Weapon skills allow you to hit more effectively....or defend yourself better....or do extra damage to punch through DR; your higher-level character effectively becomes his own armour and "magic weapon".  Etc.

So, to answer your question, stat blocks and combat rules require streamlining.  A lot of the remaining rules are too simple.  Certainly, seperating out the Wizard and Sorcerer spell lists would be a good start, and it would be nice to see lists that are actually more flavourful.  Someone suggested that spells have prerequisites, and that would actually be rather cool.  Providing rules for actual diplomacy (you know, where I concede this to get that) would be good too.  

Heck, because I am still working on my houserule document, I have 474 pages of "good ideas" (YMMV   ; my group likes them) to increase the complexity of the game that serve to increase PC design options, challenge level, PC ability to affect the world, and play speed.  


RC


----------



## I'm A Banana

> I am curious how fewer negative consequences for failure could fail to make the game less challenging.




There are far more negative consequences for failure than death or pemenant character damage or even permenant campaign world damage, some of which have been outlined in this thread. Furthermore, failure itself is a negative consequence. 



> I do think that the 3e system is good. I also think that the flavour and attitude of 1e is better. For my game, I mesh the two. And I tweak both as much as I like. I am the DM; I get to do that. But please do not tell me that I have to make things easier for the poor players, or that rust monsters are too scary for the shiny-metal guys to cope with, or that I have to change the rules of the game world to allow some poor schmoe to play a warforged ninja. It isn't going to happen.




I'd hope I'd never tell any DM that they have to do anything with their personal game. Heck, even the RULEBOOKS don't do that.

But I will tell you what the rules as written should cater to, and that's *everyone*. "Lowest common denominator," "baseline," "warforged ninja," and "less save-or-die and "gotcha" monsters" included. You never have to do any of that...the rules don't tell you that you do. But working hard on your game should never be a *requirement* for D&D. Obviously, it is it's own reward for those who like doing it. 

And I will tell you that easier encounters and preserved equipment and warforged ninjas and consistant characters are playstyles that, while you may not share, are of no less quality than your own games. You may judge them unfit for you, but to degrade them will provoke a response.

And I'll state again that "flavor and attitude" seem entirely edition-independant (relying, as they do, on the DM), so it appears inaccurate to say that you prefer any edition's "flavor and attitude."


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Raven Crowking said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am curious how fewer negative consequences for failure could fail to make the game less challenging.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There are far more negative consequences for failure than death or pemenant character damage or even permenant campaign world damage, some of which have been outlined in this thread. Furthermore, failure itself is a negative consequence.
Click to expand...



Failure itself is _*not*_ a negative consequence unless that failure has some _*meaningful*_ effect.  When the monster has an AC of 24, and my combined roll is 22, it doesn't matter that I failed to hit the monster if the DM tells me to roll damage anyway.

So, yes, there are many potential types of failure.  Some are more meaningful than others.  The more you remove, or limit, the consequence of the most meaningful types of failure, the less meaningful they will be.

I would imagine this to be self-evident.

In any event, whether the foregoing is self-evident or not, the continued presence of some negative effects has nothing whatsoever to do with the premise of the statement you are responding to.

12 + 16 = 28.  If you take away the 12, it doesn't matter that 16 is greater than 12, or that the 16 is still there, the sum total is still less than 28.  The only way that you could make the sum total the same or greater is if you added something to counterbalance the removal of the 12.

Hence the statement, I am curious how fewer negative consequences for failure could fail to make the game less challenging.



> I'd hope I'd never tell any DM that they have to do anything with their personal game. Heck, even the RULEBOOKS don't do that.
> 
> But I will tell you what the rules as written should cater to, and that's *everyone*.




Well, when they have the kindergarten edition that's designed for adventures in Candyland, you'll be close to your wish (but they might still be missing someone, and should lower the bar to preschoolers, right?).

You know what this argument reminds me of?  _The Incredibles_.  Everybody's special, which is another way of saying no one is.  You should always try your best, unless your best is really, really good, in which case you shouldn't try your best.  Etc., etc., etc.  At some point, our culture decided that, for fear of leaving someone out, we should all be mediocre.

And I don't mean to say that 3e is mediocre; I like the ruleset.  What I question here is, why would you want it to be?



> And I will tell you that easier encounters and preserved equipment and warforged ninjas and consistant characters are playstyles that, while you may not share, are of no less quality than your own games. You may judge them unfit for you, but to degrade them will provoke a response.




What the heck is "preserved equipment"?  And what do you mean by "consistent characters"?  Characters who never die, no matter how much foolishness they perform?

And, frankly, I do "degrade" the idea that we should simply sit back and demand everything to be easier.  That may not be a reduction in quality as you define the term, but it is as I define it.  In a similar vein, I define the work of Da Vinci as infinitely superior to my simply throwing a bucket of paint at a canvas and calling whatever I end up with "art".  Moreover, I am allowed to define quality however I please, just as you are.  And I am allowed to think your definition wonky, just as you are allowed to think I am an elitist snob for thinking that.

But my experience runs over 25 years (27, to be exact), in six states (Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Louisiana, Virginia, and California) and one province (Ontario) for hundreds of vastly divergent people, including one game that took place in a fantasy city that reached 26 players at the table at one point.  During that time, especially in my military tour, I have had players move, and I have moved.  More than once I have taken a break to pursue other things (I am currently on a few month's break due to the birth of a daughter).  

In all that time, I have had one player leave because the game wasn't what he was looking for (Hi, Jim!), one player leave due to personality conflicts (Dennis, I'm looking at you!), and one player who considered joining, but wanted to play pure 3.5 rather than a houseruled version (sorry, I don't remember your name).  And let's say, just for the sake of it, that I somehow forgot some other people who quit for some other reasons apart from moving or my restructuring or my deciding that they didn't fit with the group.

My EN World PBP has pretty well frittered away as well, but I suspect that this is largely my fault as it was my first attempt at a pbp format.....To be honest, the time between my posts is probably a real factor, and I have had some of the players tell me specifically that there are things going on in their own lives preventing them from posting.  It is my understanding that most pbp games fail....but I'd accept that this is another 5 drop-outs.

So, let's say that there are 13-20 people who quit due to style differences, or due to unhappiness with the game.  That would seem like quite a lot, if you did not take into account that I have DMed over those 27 years for well over 10 times that number of people altogether.  

So, in my experience -- which is extensive -- I'd have to say that more challenging works.  I'd have to say that more challenging works because, having done both with the same people, there has _never_ in my experience been an instance where _any_ player has _ever_ told me that they preferred less challenging.

YMMV, and if your players enjoy less challenging, more power to you.  However, I hope you'll understand if I take my experience over your say-so.  IMHO, and IME, easier encounters = less quality.  Please note that I am talking about overall tone; PCs should have encounters that allow them to demonstrate their growth.  10th level PCs should get the chance to trounce lowly orc warriors.  At the same time, they should get the opportunity to face things that truly make them sweat.  Again, IMHO and YMMV.



> And I'll state again that "flavor and attitude" are entirely edition-independant (relying, as they do, on the DM), so it's very inaccurate to say that you prefer any edition's "flavor and attitude."




Flavour and attitude rely upon the DM and players in any edition, but then so do the rules used, and to roughly the same extent.  And I very much doubt that you would claim that it's therefore very inaccurate to say that you prefer any edition's rules.

There is a very big difference between the flavour and attitude of 1e and 3e, which examining the rulebooks makes quite clear.  You may choose to "go against the grain" of this flavour and attitude, just as you may choose to rewrite rules you do not like, but that is a far cry from claiming that either doesn't exist.

Frankly, given that so many people on EN World and in this thread have played more than one edition of D&D, I find it amazing that you'd even try to float that Titanic of an argument.


----------



## Ourph

Hussar said:
			
		

> Or, conversely, DM's play in modules where random encounters frequently ARE carting around treasure that makes it worth your while to kill them.  Never mind that a wandering couple of creatures are so much easy xp that it makes sense to kill them anyway.




The 1e rules specifically state that treasure type is indicative of the amount of treasure found with a creature in its lair.  By definition, wandering monsters are not in their lair and should have less treasure about them (the exact details are left up to the DM).  In addition, as I said upthread, if you are going strictly by the 1e RAW XP from monsters is a low payoff endeavor.  What you gain XP-wise for defeating a monster is minimal compared to the resources you waste if the creature has no significant treasure.  You're much better off to spend those resources fighting creatures with more treasure or gaining treasure without fighting than you are attacking everything that moves.  Going for "XP on the hoof" in 1e is simply bad strategy.


----------



## FireLance

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Hence the statement, I am curious how fewer negative consequences for failure could fail to make the game less challenging.



After thinking about it a bit, perhaps we're not talking about the same thing. When I talk about the level of challenge, I'm thinking about the straightforward chance of success or failure on a challenge by challenge basis. When a PC fights an orc, whether losing to the orc results in his death, in his waking up alive but stripped of all equipment, or in his rescue by an NPC, it has no effect on his basic chance of winning. From that perspective, the game is still as challenging if some types of negative consequences are removed.

Now, if you look at the knock-on consquences of failure then yes, removing the more serious consequences of failure will put a cap on the relative difficulty of subsequent challenges. Hence, on a per adventure or per session basis, the game could get less challenging.

The key issue is what happens during the next adventure or the next session. If the DM takes into account the PC's reduced circumstances, the challenge level effectively "resets" - the player creates an equally powerful new PC, the DM replaces the PC's equipment, the DM ratchets down the level of challenge, etc. In other words, the game becomes about as challenging as it used to be.

If the DM does not take into account the PC's reduced circumstances, the increased challenge continues, the PC becomes even more likely to fail and, barring exceptional player skill or luck, will eventually reach the point where re-starting the campaign seems to be the less painful option. At which point, unless the consequences of failure have a knock-on effect on the next campaign, the game again becomes about as challenging as it used to be.

In summary: removing some negative consequences for failure may make the game less challenging in the short run (whether or not this means less fun will depend on the preferences of the group), but I still don't think it will appreciably reduce the challenge in the long run.


----------



## Numion

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Failure itself is _*not*_ a negative consequence unless that failure has some _*meaningful*_ effect.  When the monster has an AC of 24, and my combined roll is 22, it doesn't matter that I failed to hit the monster if the DM tells me to roll damage anyway.
> 
> So, yes, there are many potential types of failure.  Some are more meaningful than others.  The more you remove, or limit, the consequence of the most meaningful types of failure, the less meaningful they will be.
> 
> I would imagine this to be self-evident.




I would actually say that a failure itself is a negative consequence. 

For whatever reason one of the most annoying failures I've had in D&D was a werewolf that got away. Our purpose was to clean out an evil cult working out of an old tomb - the main baddie was a werewolf spellcaster, a sorcerer I suppose. Due to my failure (opening a door at the wrong moment followed by amazin tumble rolls by the wolfie) allowed it to get away.

Now this had no negative consequences - the DM gave us XP, the wolfie didn't seem to have much of value on him at that point, and we accomplished what we wanted; we broke the cult.

Still it annoyed me to no end for some reason. It was a failure of my tactics, and it allowed a werewolf to get the best of me. A baddie was better than me / my character. Had the campaign lasted I would've come back to the area at level 15 and whoop the werewolves ass to orbit, just to get personal gratification.


----------



## Numion

Ourph said:
			
		

> The 1e rules specifically state that treasure type is indicative of the amount of treasure found with a creature in its lair.




BTW, there was a strange effect if the DM followed this advice blindly (like I did sometimes). An intelligent baddie would attack the PCs 'naked', while it had all kinds of useful magic gizmos back at its lair. But that is not a knock on 1E, because DMs are supposed to use brains in any edition.

But the consequence is that random encounters are not a complete waste loot-wise even in 1E.


----------



## Philotomy Jurament

Numion said:
			
		

> Now this had no negative consequences - the DM gave us XP, the wolfie didn't seem to have much of value on him at that point, and we accomplished what we wanted; we broke the cult.
> 
> Still it annoyed me to no end for some reason.



I would've brought that werewolf back as a recurring villain that everyone would've loved to hate.  Player failure thus enhancing the overall game.  Man, there's nothing like a villain that keeps getting away.


----------



## Numion

Philotomy Jurament said:
			
		

> I would've brought that werewolf back as a recurring villain that everyone would've loved to hate.  Player failure thus enhancing the overall game.  Man, there's nothing like a villain that keeps getting away.




Me too! However, it was another DMs campaign and we never came back to the area. I would've had the werewolf come back with vengeance for breaking his cult.


----------



## Hussar

> And, frankly, I do "degrade" the idea that we should simply sit back and demand everything to be easier. That may not be a reduction in quality as you define the term, but it is as I define it. In a similar vein, I define the work of Da Vinci as infinitely superior to my simply throwing a bucket of paint at a canvas and calling whatever I end up with "art". Moreover, I am allowed to define quality however I please, just as you are. And I am allowed to think your definition wonky, just as you are allowed to think I am an elitist snob for thinking that.




But, no one is demanding that FROM YOU.  The rules most certainly aren't.  If you want to spend the time to intricately craft your campaign, detail every NPC, develop 10000 years of history, rewrite large swaths of the rules, more power to you.  The rules specifically support your choice to do that.  The rules even go so far as to give baselines in order to be able to judge what effects your changes may have in future play.

For example, in the 3e DMG it discusses adding in more lethal critical hits.  I don't have the book in front of me, so I cannot quote page and verse, but, the gist of the advice is that any increase in lethality in combat is generally going to hurt the PC's far worse than the monsters since the PC's have to fight every fight, but the baddies only fight once.  Pretty solid advice.  Now, it doesn't say, "Don't do this"; rather it states that if you do, be aware that there are consequences.

So, if you want to rewrite the game, go for it.

However, OTOH, there are large swaths of gamers who are quite content to play with RAW (or fairly close to it) and don't feel inclined to spend large amounts of time going beyond what's there.  Should that sort of player or DM be barred from the game?  Why not instead craft rules that work the majority of the time and allow those DM's to run games as well?

Strawman arguements about candyland games aren't helping.  The vast majority of the source material for D&D, in any edition, is most certainly not high literature.  What RC claims as inspiration, I see as leg irons shackling me to a specific game.  I was 14 years old playing 1e.  Who the heck was I to tell EGG that he was wrong and that dwarves should be able to be wizards?

It's easy enough to say, "oh, well, any rule you didn't like you could just change" but, when it came down to it, I know I was (and still am) very uncomfortable fiddling with the rules.  I can do it, and I have done it, and I still do it, but I've NEVER liked it.  Whacking on a bunch of limitations, then wrapping it up in prose that is less than precise to say the least is not, IMHO, a way to tell people to make the game their own.


----------



## Raven Crowking

FireLance said:
			
		

> Now, if you look at the knock-on consquences of failure then yes, removing the more serious consequences of failure will put a cap on the relative difficulty of subsequent challenges. Hence, on a per adventure or per session basis, the game could get less challenging.
> 
> The key issue is what happens during the next adventure or the next session. If the DM takes into account the PC's reduced circumstances, the challenge level effectively "resets" - the player creates an equally powerful new PC, the DM replaces the PC's equipment, the DM ratchets down the level of challenge, etc. In other words, the game becomes about as challenging as it used to be.




This is exactly, btw, what I disagree with.  Somehow, during the time between sessions, the world changes, the challenge level "resets", and the negative consequences of failure are effectively removed.  This reduces, perforce, both the negative consequences of failure, and hence the level of challenge.  It is true that the game is "about as challenging" as it was before the failure occurred, but the simple fact that the players know and can expect that the game will "reset" means that it was less challenging in the first place.

Numion, in your werewolf example, your personal investment created a meaningful consequence of failure.  This is obviously possible, even where the rules might nerf meaningful consequence utterly.  However, this is different from consequences provided by the rules, and is certainly nothing that we should be expecting from those "poor DMs" who are made better by the ruleset.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> So, if you want to rewrite the game, go for it.




As you well know, I am engaged in exactly that same project.    



> However, OTOH, there are large swaths of gamers who are quite content to play with RAW (or fairly close to it) and don't feel inclined to spend large amounts of time going beyond what's there.  Should that sort of player or DM be barred from the game?  Why not instead craft rules that work the majority of the time and allow those DM's to run games as well?




Why would that sort of player or DM be barred from the game, if the game was more proactive toward the first sort of DM?  There are parts of the ruleset that I think are weak, either because they are overcomplicated or because they are undercomplicated, and if the ruleset created by addressing these issues was better overall, why wouldn't that ruleset allow gamers to play with the (revised) RAW?

There is nothing inherent in rules revision that prevents people from being less creative, if that is what they want.  And, let's face it, there are times when almost everyone wants a McGame over a homemade gameburger.

Neither position, however, requires that the McGame has to suck.  I would go so far as to say that the higher the standard baseline, the better the McGame is going to be.  As a result, it is not conducive to _cater to everyone_ when designing _anything_.  It is far better to choose an approriate level, and then invite everyone who desires to to at the very least attempt to achieve it.

You may believe that the Candyland reference is a "strawman", but games designed for small children _are_ designed with the concept that everyone can play, and that no one feels left out.  There is a reason that Snakes And Ladders relies entirely on dice, and has no element of skill (unless you add multiple pieces).  Games like Sorry raise that bar, by adding multiple pieces, hence choice and skill, to the mix.  Monopoly is even more complex.  Is it any wonder that the suggested age range for these games runs, lowest to highest, from Snakes And Ladders (or Candyland) to Monopoly?

If you are going to make the argument, as KM did, that D&D should cater to _everyone_, then my comment about Candyland is not a strawman.



> What RC claims as inspiration, I see as leg irons shackling me to a specific game.  I was 14 years old playing 1e.  Who the heck was I to tell EGG that he was wrong and that dwarves should be able to be wizards?




Yeah, and I was 13.  Yet I was able to change the rules however I desired (starting with the Blue Box), including filling a notebook with new monsters taken from novels, folklore, and real-world animals (many of which, as it turned out, appeared in the Monster Manual, because apparently EGG was as interested in dinosaurs and mythology as I was).  

I don't think that this is related to age, but rather to self-confidence.

I also think that, again and again in the text of the 1e books, EGG made a concerted effort to raise the self-confidence of individual DMs.  You might feel that, in your particular case, he failed at this.  I feel that he at least made the effort.  I would like to see that effort made again in future editions.

Also, it is fairly obvious that if you felt shackled by no dwarven wizards, even though the rules told you explicitly and repeatedly that you could change anything, how much more shackled to _*allowing*_ dwarven wizards must this new generation of DMs feel, bereft of such strongly worded advice?


RC


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Failure itself is not a negative consequence unless that failure has some meaningful effect. When the monster has an AC of 24, and my combined roll is 22, it doesn't matter that I failed to hit the monster if the DM tells me to roll damage anyway.
> 
> So, yes, there are many potential types of failure. Some are more meaningful than others. The more you remove, or limit, the consequence of the most meaningful types of failure, the less meaningful they will be.
> ...
> 
> Hence the statement, I am curious how fewer negative consequences for failure could fail to make the game less challenging.




(a) Failure itself *is* a negative consequence. It's pretty basic psychology -- knowing you did something bad is a self-punishment, even if you don't get punishment from some authority. The PC's are playing heroes, after all. For a hero to fail -- for an icon of what is good in the world to show their flaws -- is part of the drama involved. They are the Good Guys, they should Win. I don't care what kind of pointless skill check it is, I've never seen anyone not care about rolling a "1." Because a 1 means you fail, and failure is something to be avoided.

(b) My point was that there are not fewer negative consequences for failure in 3e in comparison to earlier editions, but rather an encouragement of a broader sweep of possible negative consequences that do not result in permenant character death or damage, and that the consequences for failure have not been lessened, merely transferred. In Mearl's re-write of the Rust Monster, for instance, there is still a consequence for failure -- you get rusted, you become much less effective for a time (same consequence as the original rust monster, just for less time). During that time, if you need to accomplish something (say, fight the BBEG) you will have less of a chance of doing it, more of a chance of failure. And if you fail at that something (the BBEG escapes or, even worse, manages to chase the party off), then the failure begins to snowball.



> You know what this argument reminds me of? The Incredibles. Everybody's special, which is another way of saying no one is. You should always try your best, unless your best is really, really good, in which case you shouldn't try your best. Etc., etc., etc. At some point, our culture decided that, for fear of leaving someone out, we should all be mediocre.
> 
> And I don't mean to say that 3e is mediocre; I like the ruleset. What I question here is, why would you want it to be?




No one is a special unique snowflake. And when you want to be entertained, you want SOMEONE ELSE to do their best to entertain you...that's why you're paying them, after all. I'm not going to try to be entertained. I don't go to a movie expecting to have to cast, direct, and plot the darn thing. As a PnPRPG, D&D will need that kind of thing; the challenge, for D&D, is to make that as easy as possible so I spend time playing the game instead of re-designing the game. 

I was probably too broad when speaking about "everyone." What I guess I meant was "everyone with an interest in re-creating pop fantasy in a table-top RPG environment." It's still pretty niche, but at least it's a broad niche, big enough to trap at least a significant fraction of the WoW audience, I'd think. 

I've never said I want D&D to be mediocre. You're the one who believes that somehow the "common person" is the "lowest common denominator," implying that by allowing them into our precious hallowed halls we will defame this game. I don't buy that, not for one second. A D&D for "everyone" would be the best D&D it could be. It adheres to democratic, capitalistic, and evolutionary standards of quality. It would entertain me in the ways I want, because I paid it to, and if it didn't do it for me, at least I could change it so it did.



> What the heck is "preserved equipment"? And what do you mean by "consistent characters"? Characters who never die, no matter how much foolishness they perform?




Sure. Why not? After all, D&D is a game, not a teaching tool. As long as there's the possibility of failure and the possibility of success, death is only one potential iteration of that, and a VERY extremist one at that. Losing something I've spent four hours crafting is like taking my macaroni picture and burning it because I failed to account for my audience being blue-green colorblind when I used blue and green food coloring.  

I don't pay the designers to punish my foolishness. I date girls for that experience. 



> So, in my experience -- which is extensive -- I'd have to say that more challenging works. I'd have to say that more challenging works because, having done both with the same people, there has never in my experience been an instance where any player has ever told me that they preferred less challenging.




Your experience hinges on a few things. First, that less character death = less challenging. Your definition of "challenge" is very narrow. Second, that less consequences = less challenging. Your definition of "consequences" is also very narrow. Third, that those who chose to play with you did so because they like to be challenged, leaving those who wanted simple fun out of your experience (lots of experience isn't extremely significant if you only get one end of the bell curve, kind of like asking 1 million Mormons if they approve of gay marriage).

Finally, it's important to note that your extensive experience is still paltry when compared to WotC's market research, so if we're measuring statistics here, I'll take their word over yours.



> There is a very big difference between the flavour and attitude of 1e and 3e, which examining the rulebooks makes quite clear. You may choose to "go against the grain" of this flavour and attitude, just as you may choose to rewrite rules you do not like, but that is a far cry from claiming that either doesn't exist.




So where, then, in the rules, is this "flavor and attitude" difference? Before, it was claimed that the rules could not show this difference. If they can, show me where. Quote me chapter and verse. Give me evidence to support this claim, since it runs counter to previous claims that I can't get specific rules examples of playstyle differences.



> Neither position, however, requires that the McGame has to suck. I would go so far as to say that the higher the standard baseline, the better the McGame is going to be. As a result, it is not conducive to cater to everyone when designing anything. It is far better to choose an approriate level, and then invite everyone who desires to to at the very least attempt to achieve it.




This is, however, a very ineffective way to run a successful company. I believe Kevin over at RIFTS operates under this philosophy, and how, would you say, RIFTS compares to D&D? Is it a homemade gameburger? Is it high-quality, choice rules and delicious supplements untained by the need to appeal to a mass market? Or is it one man's exclusive idea of excellence, defended rabidly against all comers?

No, just like a good politician, a good product should listen to it's audience. It needs it's audience to survive. If it doesn't give it's audience what 75/100 people want, it will not exist. Coke listened to their audience when they got rid of New Coke. McD's listened to their audience when they carried salads and yogurt. FOX listened to it's audience when it picked up another few seasons of Family Guy. And D&D listens to it's audience when it makes the game more accessible.

Heck, even in the creation of art, we don't find your business model. Commercial art, paperback mystery and romance (and scifi/fantasy) novels, adverstising design, a new Ford Truck jingle....it's not like Dan Brown sits down and tries to create some magnum opus of quality and suspense (a quick read through any of his books will tell you that) that will inevitably attract a die-hard audience. He sits down to make a good book that people will buy. Then it gets optioned for a movie, and everyone's happy. 

The game cannot suck if it appeals to it's widest possible audience. I mean, maybe you'll be one of those 25 people who thinks it does, but there's 25/100 people who don't get Picasso and who think that Techno is dumb, too. 



> I don't think that this is related to age, but rather to self-confidence.




I think it relates to interest in fiddling with the rules. Hussar said he *still* doesn't like fiddling with the rules. Most people don't want to design monopoly, they want to play it. Most people don't want to design dwarven wizards if the learned experts told them it sholdn't be done. Especially if there's an option for less money at the local videogame store that will supply that need for me without having to fiddle with the rules. Most people don't like fiddling with the rules. We'd rather pay someone to deliver us good rules right off the bat. 

A good game will give most people what they want, and most people want the rules to be done FOR THEM. Because they're paying someone to entertain them.


----------



## Ourph

Numion said:
			
		

> But the consequence is that random encounters are not a complete waste loot-wise even in 1E.




It depends on the creature.  Another party of evil NPCs is likely going to be a bonanza of loot.  If players attack a giant snake slithering down the corridor hoping it will be "carrying" some of its loot with it, they deserve what they get.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> (a) Failure itself *is* a negative consequence.




Meaningful failure is a negative consequence.  This is obviously possible, even where the rules might nerf meaningful consequence utterly. However, this is different from consequences provided by the rules, and is certainly nothing that we should be expecting from those "poor DMs" who are made better by the ruleset.



> (b) My point was that there are not fewer negative consequences for failure in 3e in comparison to earlier editions,




Can you supply examples of negative consequences for failure in 3e that do not occur in 1e?  Because this thread contains several examples of the reverse.



> No one is a special unique snowflake. And when you want to be entertained, you want SOMEONE ELSE to do their best to entertain you...




Obviously, we differ here.  When I want to be entertained, I don't necessarily expect someone else to do it.  Which is actually one of the reasons I enjoy DMing....World creation is fun in its own right.  At other times, such as when playing games ranging from chess to D&D, I expect that a lot of the work for entertainment comes from me.  In fact, in those cases, I expect that the work of the players can and will create something greater than the sum of its parts.  Because when I sit at the table, I assume that everyone there is a special and unique person that has unique contributions to make.  

This isn't the same as your "special snowflake" twinkiness.  What I get from your "special snowflake" poodoo is that the person believes that they are so special that others have to work to entertain them.  Like the player who expects that the DM has to work to make a world that meets his warforged ninja specifications.

Expecting to be able to determine how you spend your energies in an rpg (as player or DM) isn't being a "special snowflake".  Assuming that you are able to direct others' energies is.

Now, some forms of entertainment, such as books and movies, are areas in which I can and do expect a certain level of quality.  I also expect a certain level of quality from rpg books.  I expect this because _I pay for them_.  Money spent represents a certain level of effort that you have put into some other area (job), the benefit from which you are transferring to another (to the writer, etc., via money).

I certainly agree with you that, from a design standpoint _and up to a certain point_ "the challenge, for D&D, is to make that as easy as possible so I spend time playing the game instead of re-designing the game."  The game should be both playable "as is" and should encourage customization for those who want to put in the effort.  Who find the effort...entertaining.

What I do not think, though, is that 3e is "as easy as possible" to play "as is".  Many, many of the changes that I have made to the rules are intended specifically to ease certain parts of play, and to make other parts of play more fun.  I would go so far as to say that ALL of the changes I have made are for that purpose.  



> I've never said I want D&D to be mediocre. You're the one who believes that somehow the "common person" is the "lowest common denominator," implying that by allowing them into our precious hallowed halls we will defame this game. I don't buy that, not for one second. A D&D for "everyone" would be the best D&D it could be. It adheres to democratic, capitalistic, and evolutionary standards of quality.




I have never, in my life, encountered a democratic, capitalistic, or evolutionary standard of quality.  One of the major reasons that the US went with representational democracy was that it was impossible for the average person 200 or so years ago to keep up with the information needed to make the best informed decision.  As a result, people hired specialists to make those decisions on their behalf.  Regardless of how you feel about the results, it is pretty clear that a "democratic standard of quality" would only work in the most limited of cases.  In fact, the belief that something is right because many people believe it, and that something is better because many people believe it to be so, are specific logical fallacies.

The idea that capitalism results in a standard of quality is equally laughable.  First off, capitalism itself relies upon the same sort of representational expertise that representational democracy does.  Second off, capitalism is concerned with the bottom line -- profit -- rather than quality.  There are, in fact, current laws that make it illegal for corporations to consider quality or ethics more than they do shareholder interest.  A capitalistic standard of quality is no standard at all.  It is, again, the idea that McDonalds is a better burger than Licks (rather than a cheaper, easier, and crappier burger).

Finally, what is an "evolutionary standard of quality"?  Darwin's famous principle (The Fittest Survive) is hampered by the fact that it makes no qualititive distinction whatsoever.  What exactly is the fittest?  How are the fittest defined?  Are they faster, stronger, better?  Not necessarily.  They are simply those that survive.

The basic idea, of course, is that if a creature survives, especially in competition with other creatures, it must have some adaptive advantage within a given environment.  However, there is no way to determine at any given point which species will succeed or fail within a given environment unless they are almost literally fish out of water.  

There is no "evolutionary standard of quality".

These things simply do not exist.



> I don't pay the designers to punish my foolishness. I date girls for that experience.




Levity noted.    



> Your experience hinges on a few things. First, that less character death = less challenging. Your definition of "challenge" is very narrow. Second, that less consequences = less challenging. Your definition of "consequences" is also very narrow. Third, that those who chose to play with you did so because they like to be challenged, leaving those who wanted simple fun out of your experience (lots of experience isn't extremely significant if you only get one end of the bell curve, kind of like asking 1 million Mormons if they approve of gay marriage).




It is, of course, possible that I've only gotten experience with one half of the bell curve, but it is far less likely considering the range of locations and players my experience encompasses.

Lets look at some of the statements you eroneously attribute to me:

Less character death = less challenging:  Character death is not required to make the game challenging; all that is required is the reasonable possibility of meaningful and relevant consequence for failure.  Character death is only one of several types of possible meaningful consequence.  However, it is an important potential consequence in certain contexts.  Mortal combat without the possiblity of death is not mortal combat.  

My definition of "challenge" is narrow:  I am not sure what you base this on.  If your game is based on rising from bed, trying to get dressed, and tying your shoes, then no, I would not find that challenging.   If you find the idea of playing basketball against preschoolers to be equally challenging to playing basketball against the Lakers, then I imagine that you will find my definition of challenge too narrow.  Otherwise, what I think you mean is that my opinion of the most desireable level of challenge is different than yours.  And, if that is what you mean, you'd be right.



> Finally, it's important to note that your extensive experience is still paltry when compared to WotC's market research, so if we're measuring statistics here, I'll take their word over yours.




More power to you.




			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Raven Crowking said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is a very big difference between the flavour and attitude of 1e and 3e, which examining the rulebooks makes quite clear. You may choose to "go against the grain" of this flavour and attitude, just as you may choose to rewrite rules you do not like, but that is a far cry from claiming that either doesn't exist.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So where, then, in the rules, is this "flavor and attitude" difference? Before, it was claimed that the rules could not show this difference. If they can, show me where. Quote me chapter and verse. Give me evidence to support this claim, since it runs counter to previous claims that I can't get specific rules examples of playstyle differences.
Click to expand...



Please read the quote that you are responding to and tell me where I said that it was based upon a specific rule or series of rules.



> Heck, even in the creation of art, we don't find your business model. Commercial art, paperback mystery and romance (and scifi/fantasy) novels, adverstising design, a new Ford Truck jingle....it's not like Dan Brown sits down and tries to create some magnum opus of quality and suspense (a quick read through any of his books will tell you that) that will inevitably attract a die-hard audience. He sits down to make a good book that people will buy. Then it gets optioned for a movie, and everyone's happy.




You and I define "Art" very differently.  We'll see how many Ford Truck jingles last as long as The Scream or the Mona Lisa.    



> The game cannot suck if it appeals to it's widest possible audience.




From http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularity.html

Fallacy: Appeal to Popularity 

Also Known as: Ad Populum 

Description of Appeal to Popularity

The Appeal to Popularity has the following form: 

Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X). 

Therefore X is true.​
The basic idea is that a claim is accepted as being true simply because most people are favorably inclined towards the claim. More formally, the fact that most people have favorable emotions associated with the claim is substituted in place of actual evidence for the claim. A person falls prey to this fallacy if he accepts a claim as being true simply because most other people approve of the claim. 

It is clearly fallacious to accept the approval of the majority as evidence for a claim. For example, suppose that a skilled speaker managed to get most people to absolutely love the claim that 1+1=3. It would still not be rational to accept this claim simply because most people approved of it. After all, mere approval is no substitute for a mathematical proof. At one time people approved of claims such as "the world is flat", "humans cannot survive at speeds greater than 25 miles per hour", "the sun revolves around the earth" but all these claims turned out to be false. 

This sort of "reasoning" is quite common and can be quite an effective persusasive device. Since most humans tend to conform with the views of the majority, convincing a person that the majority approves of a claim is often an effective way to get him to accept it. Advertisers often use this tactic when they attempt to sell products by claiming that everyone uses and loves their products. In such cases they hope that people will accept the (purported) approval of others as a good reason to buy the product. 

This fallacy is vaguely similar to such fallacies as Appeal to Belief and Appeal to Common Practice. However, in the case of an Ad Populum the appeal is to the fact that most people approve of a claim. In the case of an Appeal to Belief, the appeal is to the fact that most people believe a claim. In the case of an Appeal to Common Practice, the appeal is to the fact that many people take the action in question. 

This fallacy is closely related to the Appeal to Emotion fallacy, as discussed in the entry for that fallacy. 

Examples of Appeal to Popularity

"My fellow Americans...there has been some talk that the government is overstepping its bounds by allowing police to enter peoples' homes without the warrants traditionally required by the Constitution. However, these are dangerous times and dangerous times require appropriate actions. I have in my office thousands of letters from people who let me know, in no uncertain terms, that they heartily endorse the war against crime in these United States. Because of this overwhelming approval, it is evident that the police are doing the right thing." 

"I read the other day that most people really like the new gun control laws. I was sort of suspicious of them, but I guess if most people like them, then they must be okay." 

Jill and Jane have some concerns that the rules their sorority has set are racist in character. Since Jill is a decent person, she brings her concerns up in the next meeting. The president of the sorority assures her that there is nothing wrong with the rules, since the majority of the sisters like them. Jane accepts this ruling but Jill decides to leave the sorority.​


			
				hussar said:
			
		

> Who the heck was I to tell EGG that he was wrong and that dwarves should be able to be wizards?





			
				Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I don't think that this is related to age, but rather to self-confidence.





			
				kamikaze midget said:
			
		

> I think it relates to interest in fiddling with the rules.




'Nuff said.

It's easier to respond to posts you read.

RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

*Re:  Flavour and Attitude*

I tried to find the post where I quoted a large part of the 1e PHB advice to players.  Do I really need to do a quote-by-quote comparison of 1e & 3e in terms of flavour and attitude, or is this just a KM thing?  Enquiring minds want to know.


----------



## Hussar

> I think it relates to interest in fiddling with the rules. Hussar said he *still* doesn't like fiddling with the rules. Most people don't want to design monopoly, they want to play it. Most people don't want to design dwarven wizards if the learned experts told them it sholdn't be done. Especially if there's an option for less money at the local videogame store that will supply that need for me without having to fiddle with the rules. Most people don't like fiddling with the rules. We'd rather pay someone to deliver us good rules right off the bat.




Wut he said.



> Obviously, we differ here. When I want to be entertained, I don't necessarily expect someone else to do it. Which is actually one of the reasons I enjoy DMing....World creation is fun in its own right.




For you maybe.  Although the enduring success of Forgotten Realms points to a very large audience that disagrees.  Me, I think world creation was fun when I was in my teens and had lots of free time.  Now, not so much.  This is why I truly love "campaign in a box" modules like the AP's from Paizo or the World's Largest Dungeon.  I can run a multiyear campaign without doing any of the world creation work.  Bonus!



> What I do not think, though, is that 3e is "as easy as possible" to play "as is". Many, many of the changes that I have made to the rules are intended specifically to ease certain parts of play, and to make other parts of play more fun. I would go so far as to say that ALL of the changes I have made are for that purpose.




But, from the changes you listed above, I would say that the changes you made appeal to you.  I've never seen a PC actually try to craft anything (not that it can't be done, it's just that I've never seen it) so, the crafting rules are fine as is.  I've very, very rarely seen any PC try crafting any magic item other than scrolls, so, again, the rules work perfectly fine for me.  The combat rules are a breeze for my group and we run fairly large combats (one recent combat featured 6 PC's, 15 rasts and an advanced Celestial Queen Rast, fight took 40 minutes of real time to resolve) without a hitch.

To me, the rules do work as written.  

If the rules say that X is forbidden, I'm not very comfortable stripping that out.  After all, there should be a pretty good reason why that's forbidden.  3e makes special effort usually (not always) to call out why X is forbidden.  There is a difference between making the game as accessible _as possible_ and actually succeeding.  

Deliberately misinterpreting KM's point about everyone is just silly.  You know when he says everyone it means gamers, not 5 year olds.  There's a funky latin word for that, but because I belong to the lowest common denominator, I don't actually know it.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> KM said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think it relates to interest in fiddling with the rules. Hussar said he *still* doesn't like fiddling with the rules. Most people don't want to design monopoly, they want to play it. Most people don't want to design dwarven wizards if the learned experts told them it sholdn't be done. Especially if there's an option for less money at the local videogame store that will supply that need for me without having to fiddle with the rules. Most people don't like fiddling with the rules. We'd rather pay someone to deliver us good rules right off the bat.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Wut he said.
Click to expand...



So we can therefore disregard your "Who the heck was I to tell EGG that he was wrong and that dwarves should be able to be wizards?" line, and all the related lines?  Including anything that leads to AD&D 1e not being alterable?

In other words, are you saying that you did not feel like you were shackled by the 1e RAW, but merely didn't like "fiddling with the rules"?

Because these are two different kettles of fish.



> Deliberately misinterpreting KM's point about everyone is just silly.  You know when he says everyone it means gamers, not 5 year olds.  There's a funky latin word for that, but because I belong to the lowest common denominator, I don't actually know it.




That isn't a "deliberate misinterpretation"....and I do not even believe it is a misinterpretation.  Am I wrong in thinking that we are discussing the individual who, in a previous thread about DM rights, claimed that DMs only have the right to say "No" when the players said it was okay?  Who then claimed that he didn't mean that the DM never had the right to say "No" without consulting the players?  Who then could not come up with a single example of when a DM could say "No" without player approval?

Perhaps I am confused here, but I think I pegged _*exactly*_ what he meant.  Certainly, his "clarification" does nothing to change that impression.  And it is "silly" to pretend otherwise.  How far upthread do you think I will have to go before I can find a reference by KM to that inclusiveness referring not just to gamers, but to _anyone who might potentially become a gamer_?


RC


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> If the rules say that X is forbidden, I'm not very comfortable stripping that out.  After all, there should be a pretty good reason why that's forbidden.  3e makes special effort usually (not always) to call out why X is forbidden.  There is a difference between making the game as accessible _as possible_ and actually succeeding.



I think that is one of the fundamental differences between 1E and 3E - 1E put a lot more emphasis on certain restrictions for inherent flavour reasons (with somewhat of an expectation that a DM would houserule what he didn't like), whereas 3E seems to mainly steer clear of flavour based restrictions, and only put restrictions in place for purely mechanical or balance reasons.

Not saying this is a good thing or bad thing, just that the editions approach these points fairly differently. I never had a problem that 1E didn't allow dwarven Wizards by the RAW - if it was something I wanted in a campaign, I would simply houserule that any race can be Wizards.

I think it's fair to say the the RAW of 3E encourages more of an "anything goes" attitude to character options than earlier editions did. Which in and of itself isn't a bad thing - it only becomes an issue if the players and DM can't agree just how far this policy goes. A player may be quite keen to try out a Half-Celestial Paladin, but a DM may not be comfortable with such a character as a PC in his game. IMHO, this was less of an occurence in earlier editions due to the more strict policy of RAW in relation to "unusual" character options.

Like I said, though, this only becomes a problem if a player and a DM can't agree with what constitutes a "reasonable" character.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Just to set the record straight about WotC market research, according to http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html, 

All of the people who indicated a strong interest in RPGs identified eight "core values" that they look for in the RPG experience. These 8 core values are more important than the segments; that is, if these 8 things aren't present in the play experience it won't matter if the game generally supports a given segment's interests - the players will find the experience dissatisfying. These 8 core values are:

    * Strong Characters and Exciting Story
    * Role Playing
    * Complexity Increases over Time
    * Requires Strategic Thinking
    * Competitive
    * Add on sets/New versions available
    * Uses imagination
    * Mentally challenging 

In other words, even the players who enjoy a "Tactical Focus" still want to be challenged to use Strategic Thinking; likewise, even the Combat Focus player wants a Strong Character and Exciting Story. A person who segments into a "Tactical Focus" segment, when compared to the population as a whole is likely to be perceived as someone who enjoys Strategy; only when compared to the population of people who enjoy RPGs is the difference visible between the hard-core strategic players and the slightly less hard-core tactical players.

Similarly, people who play RPGs don't want to just play DOOM. The most hard-core fan of melee combat still wants to fight opponents that are meaningful and wants his or her character to act in a way proscribed by the archetypes of the genre or property being simulated.​
And according to http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html, 80% of D&D players from "white box" to the 3e playtest used house rules.  

This data tells us that the longer a person plays the game, the longer the game sessions get, the more people play in the game, and the longer the game progresses before a character restart. In fact, if you look at the >5 year group, you realize that the big jump in long sessions and in average sessions before a restart means that the 5+ year gamers are playing the same characters, on average, vastly longer than anyone else.​
This seems to dovetail with what EEG said in the 1e DMG about long-lasting campaigns, and how the benefits of background could only be fully appreciated after a campaign had existed for some time.

There's a poll floating around right now about how important setting is to players, but I can't find a link to it right now.  Still, it is interesting reading if you can find it pertaining to this subject.  

Also, see this thread:  http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=178759

RC


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I think that is one of the fundamental differences between 1E and 3E - 1E put a lot more emphasis on certain restrictions for inherent flavour reasons (with somewhat of an expectation that a DM would houserule what he didn't like), whereas 3E seems to mainly steer clear of flavour based restrictions, and only put restrictions in place for purely mechanical or balance reasons.




Hmm. I don't quite agree with that. Although the stated goal of level-limits and demi-human restrictions in 1e is for flavour, a major part of that flavour is so they don't dominate - in other words, are balanced! (Mind you, the halfling fighter is a flavour-based restriction without doubt).

It's quite obvious that 1e has been created with an eye for balance. It's a different style of balance from 3e: in 3e, the objective is for all characters to be able to contribute at all levels of play. In 1e, the objective is for all characters to be able to contribute over the course of a campaign that lasts from 1st to 12th level. 

One interesting feature about 3e's "anything goes" style of play is that, in fact, anything _doesn't_ go. Half-orc paladins, although possible, are distinctly rare because the mechanical features of the game discriminate against them.

(This wasn't quite recognised by the designers at the time, of course, which is why elven wizards are so poor - it's been recognised later, however.)

Cheers!


----------



## Raven Crowking

MerricB said:
			
		

> Hmm. I don't quite agree with that. Although the stated goal of level-limits and demi-human restrictions in 1e is for flavour, a major part of that flavour is so they don't dominate - in other words, are balanced! (Mind you, the halfling fighter is a flavour-based restriction without doubt).




If you consider restrictions due to flavour as equal to restrictions due to mechanical balance, then your point is spot on.

Of course, I do agree that 1e made an attempt at a specific -- and very different -- kind of balance than 3e.  As stated previously, the flavour and attitude of the two games are quite different.


RC


----------



## Hussar

> So we can therefore disregard your "Who the heck was I to tell EGG that he was wrong and that dwarves should be able to be wizards?" line, and all the related lines? Including anything that leads to AD&D 1e not being alterable?
> 
> In other words, are you saying that you did not feel like you were shackled by the 1e RAW, but merely didn't like "fiddling with the rules"?




No, I didn't like fiddling with the rules specifically because EGG and Co told me what the rules should be.  I didn't allow dwarves to be wizards because 1e told me that they couldn't.  This get's back to the schizo nature of the game.

1e RAW:  Dwarves, under no circumstances, can be wizards.
1e RAW:  Feel free to ignore this.

Which is it?  It's not like the first one was written as a suggestion.  It was specifically hardwired into the game.  So, here I am, a new gamer, and I'm _supposed_ to ignore the rules?  And that's being touted as good game design?  There's absolutely no guidance given as to WHY dwarves can't be wizards or Halflings can't be clerics, yet, I'm supposed to make any sort of rational decision to change that?

It's exactly the same if I walked up to Kasparov and told him that knights should be able to move three squares and then one, instead of two.  Some people might like that, but, me, I'll submit to authority.



			
				Thurbane said:
			
		

> I think that is one of the fundamental differences between 1E and 3E - 1E put a lot more emphasis on certain restrictions for inherent flavour reasons (with somewhat of an expectation that a DM would houserule what he didn't like), whereas 3E seems to mainly steer clear of flavour based restrictions, and only put restrictions in place for purely mechanical or balance reasons.




And this is precisely what I was referring to earlier.  Shackling me to a specific campaign.  Namely some sort of Tolkeinesque setting with extras.  

I don't want rules to tell me what my campaign must look like.  I want rules to tell me how to build my own.  So, 3e starts with a wide open approach and then the DMG, in the Campaign Creation section specifically tells me what I should look at if I want to narrow the focus.

1e starts with a narrow focus and gives next to no help when I want to move beyond that.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> No, I didn't like fiddling with the rules specifically because EGG and Co told me what the rules should be.  I didn't allow dwarves to be wizards because 1e told me that they couldn't.




Then that, again, is a confidence issue, isn't it?  1e said "Here's the rules, change 'em if you want" and you said "But I can't change them, they're the rules!"?  You say you "submit to authority" yet you don't think that confidence is the issue?

Did you feel shackled to the Greyhawk deities in 3e?


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

Hussar said:
			
		

> I don't want rules to tell me what my campaign must look like.  I want rules to tell me how to build my own.  So, 3e starts with a wide open approach and then the DMG, in the Campaign Creation section specifically tells me what I should look at if I want to narrow the focus.
> 
> 1e starts with a narrow focus and gives next to no help when I want to move beyond that.




If you want a game with fewer restrictions, 1e isn't for you.  And probably, class-based games in general aren't for you; you might want to try Runequest or GURPS?


----------



## FireLance

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> This is exactly, btw, what I disagree with.  Somehow, during the time between sessions, the world changes, the challenge level "resets", and the negative consequences of failure are effectively removed.  This reduces, perforce, both the negative consequences of failure, and hence the level of challenge.  It is true that the game is "about as challenging" as it was before the failure occurred, but the simple fact that the players know and can expect that the game will "reset" means that it was less challenging in the first place.



It is possible to run a campaign without this "reset", if you have all the adventures and challenges worked out from the start and go through them in order regardless of what happens to the PCs. Paizo's Shackled City and Age of Worms Adventure Paths are examples of this kind of campaign. The negative consequences of a significant failure or setback are felt throughout the rest of the campaign.

However, if the DM does not have the entire campaign planned out from the start, sooner or later he will have to sit down and consider what is going to happen next. At this point, he is faced with the decision of whether to take into account the PCs' current circumstances or not. I don't think there is any argument that a game in which the DM takes into account the PCs' reduced circumstances is less challenging than a game in which the DM does not. However, from my perspective, taking into account the PCs' reduced circumstances is "maintaining the level of challenge", and not doing so is "increasing the level of challenge". I can understand why you might consider taking the PCs' current condition into account when planning adventures and challenges to be "reducing the level of challenge", and not doing so to be "maintaining the level of challenge", but that approach seems to me to be a recepie for a quick TPK and a real campaign reset.


----------



## Raven Crowking

It is my general DMing method to supply options and ongoing storylines.  When PCs die (or have other major setbacks), the options which were once within their grasp to take advantage of might become a TPK waiting to happen if that is what the group chooses to do.  

I dislike the idea of having the entire campaign set out from the start, although I understand that the adventure paths are fairly popular.  That definitely falls under the "different strokes for different folks" heading, IMHO.  

Imagine, if you would, that you were running a game in which all of the classic modules were available as adventures.  The PCs come into the world knowing that everything from The Keep on the Borderlands to the Tomb of Horrors is out there, waiting for them.  They spend a fair amount of their campaign time learning what to expect from these various adventure locales.  Through dint of fortune and clever play, they pass through the Cult of the Reptile God, through the Forbidden City, explore the Isle of Dread, and are ready to head to the Barrier Peaks on some kind of crazy Expedition.

Suddenly, due to a side trek or a wandering monster, they suffer a serious setback.  Perhaps they did something silly.  Perhaps it was just bad luck.

Does Module S3 "reset" to their new power level?  Does the party "reset" to their old power level?  Or would they be well advised to seek some other adventure instead?  


RC


----------



## FireLance

RC, let me just state for the record that your game in which all the adventure modules are available as adventures sounds to me to be no different from having the entire campaign set out from the start. 

I do not think that it invalidates my point that the challenge level of the game remains the same, either. The difference is, instead of the DM deciding to use a lower-level module, the decision to take on a lesser challenge is made by the players (or at least, they would be "well advised" to seek it out instead ). Either way, the challenges faced by the PCs scale to their actual level of ability.

If "the negative consequences of failure" means that the PCs have to take on lower-level challenges until they claw their way back up to where they were before, I don't see how this makes the game more challenging, just more boring, at least to me. I can see how this might be more satisfying to certain players and DMs, though.


----------



## Raven Crowking

FireLance said:
			
		

> RC, let me just state for the record that your game in which all the adventure modules are available as adventures sounds to me to be no different from having the entire campaign set out from the start.




One presupposes the challenges that the players will face; the other creates conditions where more challenges are possible than are likely to be faced, and allows the players to choose which challenges to face.  This second adds the challenge of determining which adventures will garner the best reward for the challenges faced, as well as determining which challenges are survivable.



> I do not think that it invalidates my point that the challenge level of the game remains the same, either. The difference is, instead of the DM deciding to use a lower-level module, the decision to take on a lesser challenge is made by the players (or at least, they would be "well advised" to seek it out instead ). Either way, the challenges faced by the PCs scale to their actual level of ability.




This depends, of course, on what your goals are.  When the players are in charge like this, they might decide to undertake challenges that are "ill-advised" -- and by clever play, tactics, planning, and ample scouting/divination actually defeat those challenges.

This is something that can never occur if the "reset" button is continually pressed.


RC

(I am glad to hear that you can see how some players and DMs might find this more satisfying than a constant reset, though!    )


----------



## Thurbane

MerricB said:
			
		

> It's quite obvious that 1e has been created with an eye for balance. It's a different style of balance from 3e: in 3e, the objective is for all characters to be able to contribute at all levels of play. In 1e, the objective is for all characters to be able to contribute over the course of a campaign that lasts from 1st to 12th level.



Oh, I agree completely. I didn't mean to imply that 1E wasn't designed with balance in mind, just that 3E tends to shy away from doing things for "flavour resaons" moreso than what 1E does.


> One interesting feature about 3e's "anything goes" style of play is that, in fact, anything _doesn't_ go. Half-orc paladins, although possible, are distinctly rare because the mechanical features of the game discriminate against them.
> 
> (This wasn't quite recognised by the designers at the time, of course, which is why elven wizards are so poor - it's been recognised later, however.)



That's true too, although I have seen a few players who really seem to ejoy playing "unlikley" characters like Half-orc Paladins and Dwarf Sorcerors, despite the mechanical disadvantages.

Just curious - what's the major drawback of Elven Wizards? I've generally found elves to be quite adequate wizards - the only thing I can think of is the CON penalty resulting in fewer HP.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> No, I didn't like fiddling with the rules specifically because EGG and Co told me what the rules should be.  I didn't allow dwarves to be wizards because 1e told me that they couldn't.  This get's back to the schizo nature of the game.
> 
> 1e RAW:  Dwarves, under no circumstances, can be wizards.
> 1e RAW:  Feel free to ignore this.
> 
> Which is it?  It's not like the first one was written as a suggestion.  It was specifically hardwired into the game.  So, here I am, a new gamer, and I'm _supposed_ to ignore the rules?  And that's being touted as good game design?  There's absolutely no guidance given as to WHY dwarves can't be wizards or Halflings can't be clerics, yet, I'm supposed to make any sort of rational decision to change that?
> 
> It's exactly the same if I walked up to Kasparov and told him that knights should be able to move three squares and then one, instead of two.  Some people might like that, but, me, I'll submit to authority.



To be honest, I never allowed Dwarves to be Wizards in any 1E game I ran. I was quite happy with the flavour that EGG and co had created. But if I had felt as strongly about it as you did, I would have either A. modded the system to suit or B. looked for an RPG that was more generic. Noy trying to be a wiseguy here, just being honest.


> And this is precisely what I was referring to earlier.  Shackling me to a specific campaign.  Namely some sort of Tolkeinesque setting with extras.
> 
> I don't want rules to tell me what my campaign must look like.  I want rules to tell me how to build my own.  So, 3e starts with a wide open approach and then the DMG, in the Campaign Creation section specifically tells me what I should look at if I want to narrow the focus.
> 
> 1e starts with a narrow focus and gives next to no help when I want to move beyond that.



I think that's a little unfair. Basically every RPG, except things like GURPS, has some sort of inbuilt flavour. You basically have to decide if you want to stick with that flavour, or modify it to taste. Yes, 3E has far less of that particular flavour inbuilt, but it's still there. 3E is still quite Greyhawk oriented.


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Just curious - what's the major drawback of Elven Wizards? I've generally found elves to be quite adequate wizards - the only thing I can think of is the CON penalty resulting in fewer HP.




And a lesser Concentration check, but the trouble isn't that they have a drawback, it is that several other races have bonuses.

Humans get the extra feat and skill points. That feat is really significant; it's funny to see how dominant humans are in the world of 3e. Allow anyone to multiclass, remove level limits, but that bonus feat really makes humans the best races.  

Halflings get a bonus to AC, to hit (for ray spells), more bonuses from high Dex. Str penalty means nothing to a wizard.

Gnomes get a bonus to AC, to hit, and a bonus to the DC of illusion spells.

Elves aren't quite as good as Halflings or Gnomes, and actually worse with the Con penalty for Concentration checks. It's weird. (The Elf Generalist substitution levels in RotW compensate very well for this, btw).

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

Just stepping back to an earlier topic we touched upon: the use of henchmen & hirelings in AD&D play.

I didn't come up through that tradition. In our games - though we were aware of the henchman rules - we had pretty much the 1 character to 1 player rule in force. Henchmen and hirelings were alien to our method of play, despite one of our major AD&D campaigns being only 4 PCs.

Looking back at the original D&D's foreword (reprinted in the original Basic D&D book):
"Those wargamers that lack imagination, those who don't care for Burrough's Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do nt enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies, or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sourceries will not be likely to find DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS to their taste..."

When I was introduced to D&D (in about 1981), I was already an avid reader of ERB's Martian books. Later I read some of the Conan books (never a fan), and only in the last few years have I been able to track down the de Camp & Pratt fantasies of Harold Shea, and the Leiber tales of the terrible two. 

However, there seems to be a disconnect between these sources and the D&D which got played by people who weren't me. Having a group of 9-12 enter a dungeon is quite alien to the tales of those novels, where one or two people (normally) would be all that entered those dangerous locations.

Is 3E thus closer to the literary sources by promoting smaller groups? 

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> Oh, I agree completely. I didn't mean to imply that 1E wasn't designed with balance in mind, just that 3E tends to shy away from doing things for "flavour resaons" moreso than what 1E does.




It's interesting to look at what 3e does; it certainly uses more the carrot than the stick when it comes to flavour. (Well, not entirely - see penalties to stats for Half-Orcs )

In particular, as mentioned before, see the racial substitution levels in the Races books. Coming to mind:

* Dwarven fighters can gain weapon focus in all axes at 1st level rather than their regular bonus feat.

* Elven wizards gain knowledge of extra spells as long as they don't specialise.

The supplements really add a lot more colour to the game, but certainly 3e uses soft restrictions more than hard ones. (And even with soft restrictions, likes working ways around them, such as the Dwarven sorcerer levels in RoS!)

A new player coming to 3E will see no hard restrictions against a half-orc or dwarf wizard. However, the description in the PHB suggests against it. "Halfling and dwarf wizards are rare because their societies don't encourage the study of magic. Half-orc wizards are rare because few half-orcs have the brains necessary for wizardry."

(There are times when I feel the 3e PHB really needs a bit of Gygaxian prose; the descriptions of the classes is a case in point. They need more life! This isn't to say the 3e writers are incapable of inspirational writing, for there are great passages in the various books, but the 3e PHB comes off as too bland).

Cheers!


----------



## The Shaman

Hussar said:
			
		

> No, I didn't like fiddling with the rules specifically because EGG and Co told me what the rules should be.



"There is nothing wrong with using a prepared setting to start a campaign just as long as you are totally familiar with its precepts and they mesh with what you envision as the ultimate direction of your own milieu. Whatever doesn't match, remove from the material and substitute your own in its place." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 87, section heading "The Campaign," subheading "Setting Things in Motion."

All three primary fantasy settings published by TSR - Greyhawk, the Realms, and _Dragonlance_ - feature significant variations from the baseline provided in the core rules, which is supported by both the spirit and letter of those same rules.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> I didn't allow dwarves to be wizards because 1e told me that they couldn't.  This get's back to the schizo nature of the game.
> 
> 1e RAW:  Dwarves, under no circumstances, can be wizards.
> 1e RAW:  Feel free to ignore this.
> 
> Which is it?  It's not like the first one was written as a suggestion.  It was specifically hardwired into the game.



No, it is written as a suggestion, as a starting point from which the dungeon master may diverge, as is specifically stated in the 1e _AD&D DMG_:

1e RAW: Dwarves are non-magical and do not cast magic spells...
1e RAW: ...unless it suits your milieu for them to do so.​
You can cherrypick rules all day long, but the fact remains that race restrictions, class restrictions, level restrictions, racial preferences, _et cetera_ may be changed to fit the dungeon master's own setting per the direction provided by the rules themselves.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> So, here I am, a new gamer, and I'm _supposed_ to ignore the rules?  And that's being touted as good game design? There's absolutely no guidance given as to WHY dwarves can't be wizards or Halflings can't be clerics, yet, I'm supposed to make any sort of rational decision to change that?



"Until you are sure of yourself, lean upon the book." - _ibid_.

And yes, it is "touted" as good game design. Not everyone is as dependent on the rules for direction as you were/are - for gamers who personalize their games, who use the baseline as a starting point rather than a hard boundary, it is most definitely good design. And yes, it was *a conscious choice to make it so*.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> It's exactly the same if I walked up to Kasparov and told him that knights should be able to move three squares and then one, instead of two.



Why not? If both of you agree to play the game what way, what's the problem?

You do know that there are *variant rules for chess*, right?







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Some people might like that, but, me, I'll submit to authority.



That's your choice of course, but saying that because you choose to play only within certain rigid parameters that the game itself cannot be played outside those parameters is flat wrong.







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> And this is precisely what I was referring to earlier.  Shackling me to a specific campaign.  Namely some sort of Tolkeinesque setting with extras.
> 
> I don't want rules to tell me what my campaign must look like.  I want rules to tell me how to build my own.  So, 3e starts with a wide open approach and then the DMG, in the Campaign Creation section specifically tells me what I should look at if I want to narrow the focus.



3e did away with hard class and level limits for non-humans (replacing them with soft limits instead), but the races themselves are still "hardwired" ( :\ ) with discrete abilities that "dictate" aspects of a game-universe, just as they did in earlier editions, unless the dungeon master chooses to change them. From post 668 in this thread:







			
				The Shaman said:
			
		

> Why are elves immune to _sleep_, more resistant to certain spells, able to see better in low-light conditions, proficient with longsword, rapier, longbow,and shortbow, more alert, and better at finding secret doors without actively searching? Aren't these attributes that describe 3e _D&D_ elves "hardwired into the rules" as well? And if I use these elves as written, aren't they dictating an aspect of my setting? What if I think elves should be presented as they are in Norse mythology? Or in _Three Hearts and Three Lions_? How does 3e make this possible in ways that 1e doesn't?



Or gnomes: what if I want gnomes that are like those in _The Sword of Shannara_ instead? Or dwarves: what if I want dwarfs like those of Narnia, or the Finnish _Kalevala_ instead? Or trolls: what if I want trolls that turn into stone in sunlight and don't regnerate like those in _The Hobbit_ instead of the trolls from _Three Hearts and Three Lions_ (from which the _AD&D_ and 3e _MM_ troll is derived)? 

All of this is "dictates" aspects of the game-world in 3e as well, so again I ask, what's your point?







			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> 1e starts with a narrow focus and gives next to no help when I want to move beyond that.



"...'I don't like this' does NOT equal 'this is primitive/incomplete/badly designed'." - *Old Geezer*, from *RPG.net*.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Meaningful failure is a negative consequence. This is obviously possible, even where the rules might nerf meaningful consequence utterly. However, this is different from consequences provided by the rules, and is certainly nothing that we should be expecting from those "poor DMs" who are made better by the ruleset.




If failure itself is a fear, the quality of the DM is only relevant in as much as they provide a potential for failure. As long as the DM is making you roll dice for things, there is a fear of failure in that thing. The failure need not have "meaningful" consequences because rolling the dice and seeing a 1 and not accomplishing what you want to accomplish is a meaningful consequence. Exactly how that plays out will determine what roll was made, but the RAW provides many consequences for failing the rolls without clever DM intervention. 



> Can you supply examples of negative consequences for failure in 3e that do not occur in 1e? Because this thread contains several examples of the reverse.




Again, I'll repeat my point: 3e has *no fewer* negative consequences than 1e.

But, sure, I can mention a few negative consequences for failure that occur in 3e and not earlier (by RAW):

1 - Failure on a Diplomacy check for a paladin will fail to sway an opponent.
2 - Failure on a Craft check for a wizard will waste time and money.
3 - Failure on a Bluff check to fient for a druid will mean the enemy retains his Dex bonus to AC
4 - Failure by 5 or more on a Disable Device check for a monk may spring the trap.

These all revolve around the Skill system. While 1e had thief skills, no paladin, wizard, druid, or monk could experience those consequences, thus broadening the scope of possible negative things that can happen to characters.

Note that few of these involve direct punishment for error, too. They don't have to. Failure by itself is avoided, even if you're not going to die from it.



> I certainly agree with you that, from a design standpoint and up to a certain point "the challenge, for D&D, is to make that as easy as possible so I spend time playing the game instead of re-designing the game." The game should be both playable "as is" and should encourage customization for those who want to put in the effort. Who find the effort...entertaining.
> 
> What I do not think, though, is that 3e is "as easy as possible" to play "as is". Many, many of the changes that I have made to the rules are intended specifically to ease certain parts of play, and to make other parts of play more fun. I would go so far as to say that ALL of the changes I have made are for that purpose.




Certainly 3e is not the holy grail of gaming systems, but it is the best edition of D&D to support both the customization and rules fiddling for those who desire it (as one who loves it myself, having rules logic explained makes it immensely easier) as well as minimizing the need to do it for those who don't care to do it to get the game they want.

It's not perfect, but it is the best D&D we have for that.



> I have never, in my life, encountered a democratic, capitalistic, or evolutionary standard of quality.




Funny, because those are the standards of quality *least* likely to be based mostly on subjective personal accounts. Democratic standards allow the game to be answerable to it's customer base. Capitalistic standards similarly force the game to meet a popular need. Evolutionary standards force the game to change along with that need and customer base or become irrelevant. And chess, for that particular point, has lasted because it's need has not changed. Much like the crocodile, it does what it does well enough that it doesn't need to change.  The needs of those enacting pop fantasy certainly have changed, as MMOs and the Harry Potter movies can help show, and as the immense popularity of 3e can provide evidence for. 

They're still very culturally subjective, but rather than depending upon one core collective's opinion of greatness, it attempts to get as many people as possible to share that opinion, and that group then sways the product's development, resulting in a product suited for it's niche (capitalistic), with as broad a niche as possible (evolutionary), who is subject to change based on popular opinion (democratic).

Those standards met, you have a high-quality product. All successful and popular things meet those standards, though some do through design, and some do through accident. 



> It is, of course, possible that I've only gotten experience with one half of the bell curve, but it is far less likely considering the range of locations and players my experience encompasses.




The nature of your "if you build it, they will come" method of attracting players means that you have minimized the players that disagree with your methods from the outset, because these players do not seek you out. They could exist in great numbers.

All I'm really saying is that your experience, good as it is, has a filter on it that weeds out those you wouldn't have fun with. That doesn't mean that those people should be excluded from the study, though. And it does mean your experience is less than the 1,000 strong that WotC's is.



> Please read the quote that you are responding to and tell me where I said that it was based upon a specific rule or series of rules.




Okay.



> There is a very big difference between the flavour and attitude of 1e and 3e, which examining the rulebooks makes quite clear.




I'm asking you to show me where the rulebooks make it clear. It should be a simple excersise in comparison. Give me a passage from 1e including it's "flavor and attitude," and give me a passage from 3e including it's different "flavor and attitude." 

Give me more than one, if you'd like to *really* convince me. 

Otherwise, I can only assume the difference is, as I have been told before, in the DMs, not in the editions.



> You and I define "Art" very differently. We'll see how many Ford Truck jingles last as long as The Scream or the Mona Lisa.




I believe the composers, singers, and creators of those jingles would certainly call themselves artists. You're going to take away that title because it's not grand high art of powerful and eternal cultural significance? It's pop art, but D&D is pop fantasy, not grand high creativity on par with perfection of the human form or a representation of dramatic emotion. There are some Andy Warhols in D&D who can create high pop art, but even Andy knew that commercial and crass things need to be considered and woven into the work, not ignored in favor of some concept of purity and ultimate purpose.



> It is clearly fallacious to accept the approval of the majority as evidence for a claim. For example, suppose that a skilled speaker managed to get most people to absolutely love the claim that 1+1=3. It would still not be rational to accept this claim simply because most people approved of it. After all, mere approval is no substitute for a mathematical proof. At one time people approved of claims such as "the world is flat", "humans cannot survive at speeds greater than 25 miles per hour", "the sun revolves around the earth" but all these claims turned out to be false.




Where this falls short is the idea that the quality of D&D is not falsifiable, subject to tests, or otherwise scientifically verifiable. No one individual can, in any controlled experiement or logic test, objectively determine what the "best D&D game" is. What the best D&D game is falls then to statistical determination, which, while still subjective, is at least subjective to a great number. As a product that is sold, the greater the number, the more successful the product, the better suited that product is for it's audience.

Unless you have a "theorm for D&D quality," popular opinion is a perfectly valid way to measure the quality of D&D. 

What other measure could one possibly use that would be less subject to individual variance?


----------



## Ourph

MerricB said:
			
		

> However, there seems to be a disconnect between these sources and the D&D which got played by people who weren't me. Having a group of 9-12 enter a dungeon is quite alien to the tales of those novels, where one or two people (normally) would be all that entered those dangerous locations.
> 
> Is 3E thus closer to the literary sources by promoting smaller groups?




You're basing this point on fallacious reasoning.  ERB, REH, Jack Vance, all created stories that were rife with the main character leading large bands of men.  The fact that many of those men never made it through to the end of the adventure (yet the hero inevitably survived) makes no difference, as that is what often happened with AD&D henchmen and hirelings as well.    

Go back and review ERB's _A Princess of Mars_, _The Gods of Mars_, _Thuvia Maid of Mars_, REH's _Queen of the Black Coast_, _The Pool of the Black One_, Vance's _The Fallible Fiend_ and Lieber's _Rime Isle_ for examples of large bodies of henchmen and followers being led by the various fictional heroes of those authors.


----------



## Lanefan

Wow...lots to catch up on after a weekend...

First thing, from way upthread: Hussar, the jungle module you were trying to remember is probably _Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan_.

Definitions of failure and consequences: PC failure can of course take many forms, there's no disputing that.  But, what of these forms *matters* to the average player?  I'd say any of the following will matter to almost any player: death, major equipment or monetary loss, permanent level drain, permanent significant stat loss.  In a gray area, mattering to some players but not all, would be: failure to complete the in-game mission, death or loss of an important NPC, failure to uphold pre-determined standards or ethics either as character or party, damage or loss known to be temporary, and the like.  Forms of failure likely to matter to a very small number of players: a failed in-game romance, failure to uphold a standard or ethic that makes no in-game sense e.g. a Fighter that has sworn to harm none, a failed in-game business venture, etc.

From what I can tell, of the 4 major "failure types" (death, $ loss, level drain, stat loss) 3e has kept death as it was and greatly increased stat loss, while reducing level drain and almost eliminating equipment or monetary loss, as opposed to 1e.  However, there are some here who also seem to want to drastically reduce or eliminate death as a consequence, thinking the lesser failure types to be just as significant.  In some specific campaigns this might very well be true...players might gnash their teeth for weeks over failing to rescue the princess...but in most cases I'd say the challenge for players lies mostly in avoiding the 4 major failure types, while the challenge for DM's is to present them all, at least somewhat fairly (most of the time  ), with all involved knowing things can and inevitably will go wrong.

There's something of an undercurrent running through some posts here and elsewhere that seems to suggest players and their characters should not be able to significantly fail...that yes, there might be temporary setbacks but in the end the Good Guys always win, even if they take on the foes they're supposed to leave well enough alone.  Granted, sometimes this happens...a party gets in over its head and still prevails, and that's fine; the stuff of true heroism, in fact...but if the luck of the draw suggests the party's gonna get squashed this time, then pull out both barrels and let 'em have it!  (caveat: a DM fiat to keep one PC alive if all is lost can at least preserve some continuity...)  But in order to have their successes mean anything, they have to know they can just as easily fail.

Lane-"this post is probably grumpier than I feel"-fan


----------



## Numion

Lanefan said:
			
		

> From what I can tell, of the 4 major "failure types" (death, $ loss, level drain, stat loss) 3e has kept death as it was and greatly increased stat loss, while reducing level drain and almost eliminating equipment or monetary loss, as opposed to 1e.




Most people seem to think that equipment is much more important in 3E than previous editions. How do you figure that $$$ loss is decreased? There's loads of sundering stuff available, and IIRC, spells can destroy equipment too. Oh, and there are the rust monsters and some jellos that can do it too.

One of my players drew the jerk-off card from the _deck_, and was ready to retire his character  :\


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> If failure itself is a fear, the quality of the DM is only relevant in as much as they provide a potential for failure. As long as the DM is making you roll dice for things, there is a fear of failure in that thing.




Roll 1d6.  If you roll a 1 or 2, you fail.  There is no consequence for that failure.  Are you trembling in your boots yet?    

Anyone else care to try this experiment?  Anyone else _*terrified*_ by that chance of failure?

Sheesh!



> Again, I'll repeat my point: 3e has *no fewer* negative consequences than 1e.
> 
> But, sure, I can mention a few negative consequences for failure that occur in 3e and not earlier (by RAW):
> 
> 1 - Failure on a Diplomacy check for a paladin will fail to sway an opponent.
> 2 - Failure on a Craft check for a wizard will waste time and money.
> 3 - Failure on a Bluff check to fient for a druid will mean the enemy retains his Dex bonus to AC
> 4 - Failure by 5 or more on a Disable Device check for a monk may spring the trap.




The _method_ of failure has changed.  The _consequence_ has not.

In 1e, you could fail to sway an opponent, waste time and money, and spring a trap.  In 1e there were also ways you could attempt to deprive opponents of their Dex bonus to AC, and you could fail in doing this.

At least this makes clear why you don't think that there are fewer consequences for failure in 3e; you are conflating consequence with method.



> Certainly 3e is not the holy grail of gaming systems, but it is the best edition of D&D to support both the customization and rules fiddling for those who desire it (as one who loves it myself, having rules logic explained makes it immensely easier)




I agree with this.



> as well as minimizing the need to do it for those who don't care to do it to get the game they want.




But I disagree with this.  IME and IMHO, "straight" 3e is blander than straight 1e or RC D&D.  



> Funny, because those are the standards of quality *least* likely to be based mostly on subjective personal accounts.




If they were standards of quality, you might be right.

Here's a simple test:  What is the democratic, capitalistic, or evolutionary standard of quality?  How is "quality" defined in the paradigms you suggest?

What you suggest here, btw, would support the claim that 1e is superior to 3e because, although no longer supported, it still has a large fan base.  Like the crocodile, it survives.  That some other animal later evolved has no bearing on it.  It thrived in an environment simular to that of 3e (large amount of support), and also survived when the environment changed.

The only "evolutionary" evidence of "quality" then would have to occur when 5e came out, and we could measure how many were still playing 3e.  

Of course, this reasoning is itself fallicious, because the idea that quality is determined by popular mandate is fallicious, as demonstrated earlier ad infinitum ad nauseum.



> The nature of your "if you build it, they will come" method of attracting players means that you have minimized the players that disagree with your methods from the outset, because these players do not seek you out. They could exist in great numbers.
> 
> All I'm really saying is that your experience, good as it is, has a filter on it that weeds out those you wouldn't have fun with. That doesn't mean that those people should be excluded from the study, though. And it does mean your experience is less than the 1,000 strong that WotC's is.




Although, examining the market research data, we discover that WotC used roughly the same sort of filter, by eliminating anyone who would have been introduced to D&D in 1e's heyday.



> I'm asking you to show me where the rulebooks make it clear. It should be a simple excersise in comparison. Give me a passage from 1e including it's "flavor and attitude," and give me a passage from 3e including it's different "flavor and attitude."
> 
> Give me more than one, if you'd like to *really* convince me.




Is there anyone else here who does not believe that there is a difference in flavour between 1e and 3e?  Is there anyone else here who does not believe that there is a difference in attitude between 1e and 3e?

In other words, is this worth my time to do?



> Where this falls short is the idea that the quality of D&D is not falsifiable, subject to tests, or otherwise scientifically verifiable.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> popular opinion is a perfectly valid way to measure the quality of D&D.




You don't notice any disparity between these statements?

You are correct when you note that quality is, by definition, only subject to subjective analysis.  If you, therefore, say that you believe something is better because it sells more, you might be making a true statement (if you believe that).  If you say that something _*is*_ better because it sells more, you are making a false statement because there is no direct correlation between sales and quality, and because the fact that there is no direct correlation can be demonstrated.

The edition of the game you like the best is the one that has the highest quality for you.  The edition of the game that I like the best is the one that has the highest quality for me.  For the ruleset, I agree that 3e is superior (for a large part due to the OGL, which has allowed some options to be published which are superior to those WotC initially provided, and which make customization easier).  For flavour and attitude, I believe that 1e is superior.  The best edition, IMHO, would combine elements of both.

I do not expect any individual to share this valuation with me.

(This should not be confused with _qualities_, such as the hardness of materials, that can be evaluated with far more objectivity.)


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Numion said:
			
		

> Most people seem to think that equipment is much more important in 3E than previous editions. How do you figure that $$$ loss is decreased? There's loads of sundering stuff available, and IIRC, spells can destroy equipment too. Oh, and there are the rust monsters and some jellos that can do it too.
> 
> One of my players drew the jerk-off card from the _deck_, and was ready to retire his character  :\





Mearls seems to think so, with his rust monster redesign.

In 1e, when you were targetted by, say, a Fireball, your equipment had saves that did not level with you.  At the very least, you were going to lose _something_.  In 3e, your equipment uses your save so long as you are holding it or it is on your person.  

There was a time not so long ago when the relative strengths of PCs and giants was brought up, and I suggested that a PC should simply sunder the fire giant's sword.  There was some analysis afterwords, the point of which is that the sunder option is still weighted heavily toward the attempt failing.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Hussar, the jungle module you were trying to remember is probably _Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan_.




I was thinking _Dwellers of the Forbidden City_, module I1.

BTW, Lanefan, great post!

RC


----------



## Ranes

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> IME and IMHO, "straight" 3e is blander than straight 1e or RC D&D.




In the post from which I've snipped this comment, I agree with everything you said, except this comment. At least, I'd want to qualify it. I'd agree that 3e is a bland reading experience, compared with 1e/RC D&D. In play, I would be able to make no such distinction.


----------



## MerricB

Ourph said:
			
		

> Go back and review ERB's _A Princess of Mars_, _The Gods of Mars_, _Thuvia Maid of Mars_... for examples of large bodies of henchmen and followers being led by the various fictional heroes of those authors.




ERB (as noted) I know very well. Although there are odd exceptions in those books where the hero finally gets to command a small (or larger) band, the primary weight of the adventures is solo or with one or two companions.

Ditto most of Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser.

Henchmen/Mercenaries are not alien to those sources, but as to being necessary and used all the time, that seems alien.

Cheers!


----------



## Gentlegamer

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> What you suggest here, btw, would support the claim that 1e is superior to 3e because, although no longer supported, it still has a large fan base.  Like the crocodile, it survives.  That some other animal later evolved has no bearing on it.



Oh! Oh! Or like the coelacanth . . . once thought extinct, but still alive and well. 

[I don't believe in evolution, but thought the analogy apt given the context.]


----------



## EvilPheemy

FireLance said:
			
		

> You know what I say to that:
> 
> *It's Still D&D To Me*
> (with apologies to Billy Joel)​





I have SO yoinked this.​


----------



## Hussar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> *snip*
> 
> To be honest, I never allowed Dwarves to be Wizards in any 1E game I ran. I was quite happy with the flavour that EGG and co had created. But if I had felt as strongly about it as you did, I would have either A. modded the system to suit or B. looked for an RPG that was more generic. Noy trying to be a wiseguy here, just being honest.




Actually, I never had dwarves as wizards either.  Why?  Because the rules said I couldn't.  That's the point I've been trying to make all along.  Sure, the rules say I can change things, but, then, you have to have an idea of what to change something TO.  I never had dwarven wizards because it never occured to me, beyond a "Hmmm" sense that dwarves should be able to be wizards.

Let's not forget that it was many years of 1e before the first creature had a character class.  Strahd and Ravenloft was pretty late in the 1e era and featured the very first creature with a class.  Before that, it never occured to me to do that.

[/quote]
I think that's a little unfair. Basically every RPG, except things like GURPS, has some sort of inbuilt flavour. You basically have to decide if you want to stick with that flavour, or modify it to taste. Yes, 3E has far less of that particular flavour inbuilt, but it's still there. 3E is still quite Greyhawk oriented.[/QUOTE]

To answer your later question, no I don't feel any shackling by the inclusion of Greyhawk gods in 3e because to me, these are just names.  I don't know Greyhawk all that well, other than what we saw in modules.  Pelor, St. Cuthbert and the rest could be named any other name and it would not make a whit of difference to me.  The flavour isn't there at all and I feel perfectly free to swap in any other god, or even no god at all.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> Actually, I never had dwarves as wizards either.  Why?  Because the rules said I couldn't.  That's the point I've been trying to make all along.  Sure, the rules say I can change things, but, then, you have to have an idea of what to change something TO.  I never had dwarven wizards because it never occured to me, beyond a "Hmmm" sense that dwarves should be able to be wizards.




So, are you saying that you felt shackled because you were unable to do something that didn't occur to you to do, or that you felt shackled because you thought the rules said you couldn't indulge your "Hmmmm" sense despite the fact that the rules encouraged you to do so?

I mean, either you wanted to make dwarven wizards, or you didn't.

If you didn't, then you can't fairly blame the rules.  If you did, then you can't fairly blame the rules for somehow preventing you from wanting to do so.

If you did want to make dwarven wizards, you either did or you didn't.  If you did, again you can't fairly blame the rules.  

If you didn't, you either didn't because you thought you couldn't or you didn't despite the fact that you knew you could.  If you didn't despite the fact that you knew you could, you can't fairly blame the rules.  If instead you thought you couldn't, an examination of the rules shows that they encouraged you to make changes.  Again, this is not something that can be fairly laid on the rules.

What you seem to want us to believe is that (1) you wanted to make dwarven wizards, (2) the rules prevented you from doing so because they were THE RULES, and (3) although the rules encouraged you to make changes to create the game you want, you it never occurred to you that you could make dwarven wizards.

 

Meanwhile, if I were to tell you that I thought I couldn't tell the players "No dwarven wizards" in 3e, because the rules say there are dwarven wizards, and good gosh golly I'd like to change that but I can't -- my hands are tied and shackled by the rules both telling me that there can be dwarven wizards and that I can change that -- would you conclude that the fault was with the rule system....or with me?


RC


----------



## Ourph

MerricB said:
			
		

> ERB (as noted) I know very well. Although there are odd exceptions in those books where the hero finally gets to command a small (or larger) band, the primary weight of the adventures is solo or with one or two companions.



It's hard to call it an odd exception when it happens multiple times in the same book and in almost every book at least once.  In _The Gods of Mars_ John Carter takes command of groups of fighters, leading them through complexes fighting the inhabitants, no less than 3 times - and it's not like ERB's John Carter novels are lengthy books.



			
				MerricB said:
			
		

> Ditto most of Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser.



My screen name was chosen after one of the more well-known and recurrent henchmen of the Gray Mouser, so I'm afraid I'll have to disagree on that one.    



			
				MerricB said:
			
		

> Henchmen/Mercenaries are not alien to those sources, but as to being necessary and used all the time, that seems alien.



I suppose if you're looking at page-count and asking do the henchmen receive the same kind of coverage as the heroes do you could make that argument, but that's taking a very skewed view of things.  A hero having henchmen (either planned or impromptu) is a common theme in the inspirational literature for D&D.  I don't think anyone claimed that henchmen accompanied the characters on every adventure in their D&D games (that certainly wasn't the case for us).  Henchmen were a constant presence in the lives of the PCs, but there were plenty of times when a large group wasn't necessary and a small group of PCs (or even a single PC) would venture out alone.  The fact that the henchmen were employed and available didn't necessarily translate into them being constant companions.  Ditto followers for high level characters.  I think this aligns quite nicely with the treatment of henchmen in ERB, REH, Leiber and Vance's fiction.  The henchmen are stated to be there, available if necessary, but do not necessarily play a part in the daily lives of the heroes.  They appear when needed and fade into the background when they are superfluous.  IME, that's exactly how henchmen are treated in D&D.

So I would argue that the literature and the game are in agreement as far as henchmen being necessary.  There are certainly episodes in the literature where the hero(es) would have been lost if not for a trusted band of men at their command.  The same is true of D&D from my experience.  As for used all the time I would say you're drawing a false dichotomy.  As far as I know, most people whose experience with D&D henchmen mirrors my own would agree that henchmen were "used all the time" in that they were present in nearly every campaign and that the vast majority of PCs employed them, but that shouldn't be construed to mean that every henchman or even the majority of henchmen accompanied the PCs on every adventure.  In fact, some henchmen were merely transient, hired for specific expeditions that required more fighting muscle and dismissed when they were accomplished. IMO that fits perfectly with the way henchmen are portrayed in the pulp sword and sorcery genre.


----------



## RFisher

Well, for me, it all comes down to this:

I'm not a great DM. Not by a long shot. This is especially true when I'm running modules. Myself & three other people--who play 3.5e every Saturday--have been playing classic D&D (the 1981 Basic & Expert sets) for eight months now--with me running a module. The written rules are easier to understand than 3.5e. We use a few house rules, but they aren't things that are required to "fix" the system. It is quite playable as written. I don't make up lots of _ad hoc_ rules to replace the things 3.5e has that B/X doesn't. And we're having a blast! We've finished a Basic module & when I asked what they wanted to do next, the answer was to continue on with an Expert module.

(Before this, we likewise had loads of fun with classic Traveller. Dying in chargen & all.)

I guess many people said it before, but I suppose _that_ is the soul of D&D. If you can find it in 3e, more power to you. For whatever reason, _I_ have found (to my own surprise, no less!) that spirit more readily with classic D&D than with 3e. (Yet, sharing the companionship & creativity of the friends I play with can make up for that--as long as I don't have to DM 3e).

I suppose I just want to do everything I can to encourage people to look harder at every game system to figure out why somebody thought it was good. Because, when I did, I found out that what I thought I wanted in a game system wasn't what wanted, & I'm having more fun today--no matter what system I play--because of it.


----------



## The Shaman

Hussar said:
			
		

> Let's not forget that it was many years of 1e before the first creature had a character class.  Strahd and Ravenloft was pretty late in the 1e era and featured the very first creature with a class.  Before that, it never occured to me to do that.



"Any human or humanoid drained of all life energy by a vampire becomes an appropriately strengthed vampire under control of its slayer. This transformation takes place 1 day after the creature is buried, but if and only if the creature is buried. Thus it is possible to have a vampiric thief, cleric (chaotic evil in vampire form, of course), etc. If the vampire which slew the creature is itself killed, the vampires created by it become freewilled monsters." - 1e _AD&D MM_, p. 99.

"Pretty late in the 1e era," *Hussar*? The _Monster Manual_ was published before either the _Players Handbook_ or the _Dungeon Masters Guide_ - it was the first _AD&D_ book, and it provided for vampires with character class levels.

All of the demihumans in the 1e _AD&D MM_ can have non-player characters with class levels, of course. Tritons have clerics. Lycanthropes could be found with character class levels. Liches cast spells at the magic-user or magic-user cleric levels they reached before they were transformed to undead.

And then there's this: "Tribal spell casters are found amongst the following races of creatures: BUGBEARS, CAVEMEN, ETTINS, GIANTS, GNOLLS, GOBLINS, HOBGOBLINS, KOBOLDS, LIZARD MEN, OGRES, ORCS, TROGLODYTES, and TROLLS. These spell casters are divided into two types, shamans and witch doctors.

"Shamans are tribal clerics of 7th level or under....There is a limit according to the race of the shaman as to haw many levels of experience he or she can possess...

"Witch doctors are tribal cleric/magic-users....The maximum level of magic-user is dependent upon the race of the witch doctor..." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 40.


----------



## S'mon

To me the soul of the game is that it's a "Product of your imagination".  I do find that 3e rules & the approach they foster can get in the way of my imagination, which is a problem.


----------



## Hussar

*snip*

Y'know what, I give.  My experiences with earlier editions of the game were so different from yours that we were not playing the same game.  In my experience, every time the rules got changed, the players were getting hosed.  Unless it came out of TSR, in which case players were getting so much more powerful that it was ridiculous.  People talk about the flavour of 1e.  To me, there was no flavour.  We played nothing but modules.  Couple of dozen pages with boxed text.  That was it.  We blew threw them and moved on.  

But, to each his own.  Given the choice of playing 1e or not playing, I'd find another hobby.  You couldn't make me play it again on a bet.  My experiences with the game were THAT bad.  Was it the game or the DM's I played with?  Honestly, I don't know.  It was what, fifteen years ago or more, so, it's quite possible it could be both.

I will always have a soft spot for Ollamar my 20th level paladin armed with a Hammer of Thunderbolts and a Holy Avenger, but, I think I'll stick with 3e thanks.  All previous versions were merely prototypes.


----------



## WayneLigon

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> If you didn't, you either didn't because you thought you couldn't or you didn't despite the fact that you knew you could.  If you didn't despite the fact that you knew you could, you can't fairly blame the rules.  If instead you thought you couldn't, an examination of the rules shows that they encouraged you to make changes.  Again, this is not something that can be fairly laid on the rules.




You mention the 'attitude' of 1E before. Yes, indeed, the DMG say 'change whatever you want'. It says that _once_, and typically that advice is buried under a pile of other advice. After that point, though, things change. The _attitude _ of 1E, _especially _ if you were a regular reader of The Dragon at the time, was that if you made significant changes then you were no longer playing AD&D but some game of your own creation. It patted you on the head and said that was fine, but when you're ready to play what the big boys are playing, you'll run the thing just like it's written.


----------



## WayneLigon

The Shaman said:
			
		

> "Pretty late in the 1e era," *Hussar*? The _Monster Manual_ was published before either the _Players Handbook_ or the _Dungeon Masters Guide_ - it was the first _AD&D_ book, and it provided for vampires with character class levels.




And very, very seldom was that advice ever _used _ until much later; there are lots of little bits in the MM like that: stuff that was in it, but ignored for many years. Almost always, the vampire was just a vampire with no class levels added. The MM entry on vampires is longer than virtually anything else in the book, so I'm betting that lots of Gm's simply skipped that ton of flavor text. 

Ravenloft was unique in that it was the first module to present a monster as fully fleshed out as a player character.



			
				The Shaman said:
			
		

> "Witch doctors are tribal cleric/magic-users....The maximum level of magic-user is dependent upon the race of the witch doctor..." - 1e _AD&D DMG_, p. 40.




Those were special NPC classes available only to them. I'd say in my book that it didn't count. They still couldn't be Rangers, Fighters, Monks or anything else they wanted to be.


----------



## Raven Crowking

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> The _attitude _ of 1E, _especially _ if you were a regular reader of The Dragon at the time, was that if you made significant changes then you were no longer playing AD&D but some game of your own creation. It patted you on the head and said that was fine, but when you're ready to play what the big boys are playing, you'll run the thing just like it's written.




Are we talking about the same The Dragon?  Are we talking about the The Dragon wherein nary an issue passed that didn't contain something new for the game, and very often alternate rules?  The very same The Dragon that contained all those alternate classes?  Alternate poison rules?  Alternate unarmed combat?

 

The Dragon that came out in 1e's day was a veritable potpouri of "do it yourself" goodness.  In fact, it was very different from the Dragon of today in that respect.  Today's dragon has articles that slot into the existing mechanics without altering anything.  Yesterday's Dragon was willing to tinker with the rules.

Which is probably why yesterday's Dragon carried so many good articles on campaign world design and setting design for adventures, whereas with the exception of one article series, today's Dragon and Dungeon are nearly silent on the topic.

1e PHB, p. 8:  "This game is unlike chess in that the rules are not cut and dried.  In many places they are guidelines and suggested methods only.  This is part of the attraction of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and is integral to the game.  Rules not understood should have appropriate questions directed to the publisher; disputes with the Dungeon Master are another matter entirely.  The REFEREE IS THE FINAL ARBITER OF ALL AFFAIRS OF HIS OR HER CAMPAIGN.  Participants in a campaign have no recourse to the publisher, but they do have ultimate recourse -- since the most effective protest is withdrawal from the offending campaign.  Each campaign is a specially tailored affair."

1e DMG, p. 9:  "Read how and why the system is as it is, follow the parameters, and then cut portions as needed to maintain excitement."

1e DMG, p. 21:  "You have advice on why they are not featured, why no details of monster character classes are given herein.  The rest is up to you, for when all is said and done, it is your world, and your players must live in it with their characters."

And, of course, the entire preface to the 1e DMG, pp. 7-8.

(And the above is inclusive, not exclusive, the results of about 5 minutes of searching & typing.)

RC


----------



## Numion

Hussar said:
			
		

> Given the choice of playing 1e or not playing, I'd find another hobby.




I'd not go that far, but 1E _did_ drive me away from D&D. I came back with 3.0E.


----------



## Raven Crowking

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> And very, very seldom was that advice ever _used _ until much later; there are lots of little bits in the MM like that: stuff that was in it, but ignored for many years. Almost always, the vampire was just a vampire with no class levels added. The MM entry on vampires is longer than virtually anything else in the book, so I'm betting that lots of Gm's simply skipped that ton of flavor text.





So, if I say the CR system is broken because I don't use it, I'm _right_?    

If I say the 3.5 MM IV is no good because I haven't read it, I'm _right_?


----------



## Hussar

You're missing the point RC.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there were extremely few groups out there that used 1e RAW.  I'd go a step further and say that the vast majority barely scratched the surface of the RAW. 

Why would that be?  Because of fantastic game design?  Because of wonderful fluff that inspires?  What possible reason could there be that people felt the need to chuck out large sections of 1e RAW?


----------



## The Shaman

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> And very, very seldom was that advice ever _used _ until much later; there are lots of little bits in the MM like that: stuff that was in it, but ignored for many years. Almost always, the vampire was just a vampire with no class levels added. The MM entry on vampires is longer than virtually anything else in the book, so I'm betting that lots of Gm's simply skipped that ton of flavor text.



Perhaps this is true of the people with whom you played 1e, but it wasn't true of our group: we had four dungeon masters in our group and we all combed through the books looking for ideas to spring on one another and the rest of the players in our bunch. There wasn't a bit of text that we didn't exploit to create novel challenges.







			
				WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Ravenloft was unique in that it was the first module to present a monster as fully fleshed out as a player character.



I seem to recall lycanthropes with character class levels, but I couldn't tell you from where anymore. However, given that most of what we played was homebrewed adventures, I could easily be confusing that with something that me or someone else in our group put together.

I can say with confidence that there were very few vampires in our games that didn't have class levels, because it was an easy way to make a by-the-book encounter more interesting and challenging.







			
				WayneLigon said:
			
		

> [Shaman and witch doctor] were special NPC classes available only to [humanoids]. I'd say in my book that it didn't count.



You are of course entitled to your opinion.

Shaman and witch doctor humanoids were probably my favorite monsters after wights in our 1e games. I can't tell you have often a shaman or a witch doctor was the primary antagonist in my low- to mid-level adventures.







			
				WayneLigon said:
			
		

> They still couldn't be Rangers, Fighters, Monks or anything else they wanted to be.



They could if the dungeon master allowed them to be (and we did, sparingly) - that brings us back to your previous post, which *Raven Crowking* has admirably addressed already.


----------



## Garnfellow

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> You mention the 'attitude' of 1E before. Yes, indeed, the DMG say 'change whatever you want'. It says that _once_, and typically that advice is buried under a pile of other advice. After that point, though, things change. The _attitude _ of 1E, _especially _ if you were a regular reader of The Dragon at the time, was that if you made significant changes then you were no longer playing AD&D but some game of your own creation. It patted you on the head and said that was fine, but when you're ready to play what the big boys are playing, you'll run the thing just like it's written.




Yeah, I think for me those few lines in the DMG exhorting DMs to make the game their own got drowned in the many, many Sorcerer's Scroll articles and other Official Pronouncements (tm) from Lake Geneva that declared "If you aren't playing the game as written, you aren't playing Official AD&D, but rather some inferior variant."

This really stuck in my craw, especially when it became clear that (1) even Gary didn't follow the rules as written, (2) several subsystems in AD&D were seriously broken and deserved to be chucked (initiative, unarmed combat, etc.), (3) Dragon magazine was churning out extremely cool stuff every month that often cooler and/or mechanically better than much of the "Official" material, and (4) I was coming to AD&D from the Moldvay basic/expert set, which was a much cleaner ruleset that encouraged experimentation. 

After all, whose fricken game was this, and why should I be browbeaten for trying out some critical hit charts?

One of the things I most liked about 2nd edition was the abandonment of this High Orthodox view of the game and the encouragement of optional rules. Waa-hoo! Personally, I found the sea-change in attitude a real breath of fresh air, and I seem to remember a lot of DMs at the time expressing similar sentiments.

I think one of the hard things about discussing 1st edition is that, depending on what primary texts you read, you could come away with radically different views of the game. How much magical loot should PCs have access too? If you read the DMG, it sounds like a 9th level fighter should feel glad to have a +1 dagger, a +2 shield, and a philtre of love. If you ran the GDQ modules, you would expect a 9th level fighter to have a +3 sword, +3 platemail and a +3 shield, as well as a girdle of giant strength and a ring of regeneration.

I wonder . . . it seems like some of the hardest core fans of 1st edition over on Dragonsfoot are British. Was Dragon magazine readily distributed across the pond in the late 70s early 80s? I know White Dwarf from the same period had a much more libertarian and experimental view of the game, in stark contrast to the party line that was coming out of Lake Geneva. For that matter, the TSR UK contributions from the early 80s seemed to push the game boundaries a bit more than the TSR US contributions.

If my primary experience of AD&D had been limited to just the core books and WD magazine, which promoted a more open and experimental version of the game, I think I would have had a much different and probably much more positive view of 1e than I did. 

(And don't get me wrong, I still liked 1e a great deal.)


----------



## Garnfellow

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Are we talking about the same The Dragon?  Are we talking about the The Dragon wherein nary an issue passed that didn't contain something new for the game, and very often alternate rules?  The very same The Dragon that contained all those alternate classes?  Alternate poison rules?  Alternate unarmed combat?




We absolutely are all talking about the same Dragon. There was a very, very weird schizophrenia going on in that magazine during this time. The key is to read the Sorcerer's Scroll articles from the period -- while Dragon was producing some excellent variant rules, the Scroll was pushing a very limited and hyper-orthodox vision of what Official AD&D was -- and wasn't.

If you can get access to it, the Best of the Dragon volume II collects many of these articles in one place.


----------



## cildarith

Garnfellow said:
			
		

> Yeah, I think for me those few lines in the DMG exhorting DMs to make the game their own got drowned in the many, many Sorcerer's Scroll articles and other Official Pronouncements (tm) from Lake Geneva that declared "If you aren't playing the game as written, you aren't playing Official AD&D, but rather some inferior variant."
> 
> This really stuck in my craw, especially when it became clear that (1) even Gary didn't follow the rules as written, (2) several subsystems in AD&D were seriously broken and deserved to be chucked (initiative, unarmed combat, etc.), (3) Dragon magazine was churning out extremely cool stuff every month that often cooler and/or mechanically better than much of the "Official" material, and (4) I was coming to AD&D from the Moldvay basic/expert set, which was a much cleaner ruleset that encouraged experimentation.
> 
> After all, whose fricken game was this, and why should I be browbeaten for trying out some critical hit charts?




This complaint about Sorcerer Scroll articles does come up from time to time in discussions like these, but I've never quite understood why people gave these editorials so much weight.  The folks I gamed with read them, shrugged, and dove into all the variant rules in Dragon (and White Dwarf - which did a better job in many ways) with enthusiasm.  Certainly some of the stuff was unbalanced, unneccessary, or overly complicated (Leomund's Tiny Hut, anyone?), but it was all fun.





> I think one of the hard things about discussing 1st edition is that, depending on what primary texts you read, you could come away with radically different views of the game. How much magical loot should PCs have access too? If you read the DMG, it sounds like a 9th level fighter should feel glad to have a +1 dagger, a +2 shield, and a philtre of love. If you ran the GDQ modules, you would expect a 9th level fighter to have a +3 sword, +3 platemail and a +3 shield, as well as a girdle of giant strength and a ring of regeneration.




This is quite true.



> I wonder . . . it seems like some of the hardest core fans of 1st edition over on Dragonsfoot are British. Was Dragon magazine readily distributed across the pond in the late 70s early 80s? I know White Dwarf from the same period had a much more libertarian and experimental view of the game, in stark contrast to the party line that was coming out of Lake Geneva. For that matter, the TSR UK contributions from the early 80s seemed to push the game boundaries a bit more than the TSR US contributions.




I have the same impression of WD and TSR UK.  Those old WD issues were very slim (32-48 pages, and bi-monthly in the early years), yet they managed to pack more useful stuff for D&D between the covers of a single issue than two or three issues of Dragon (and this was during the period that many people consider the "Golden Age" for the latter publication).


----------



## The Shaman

Hussar said:
			
		

> I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there were extremely few groups out there that used 1e RAW.  I'd go a step further and say that the vast majority barely scratched the surface of the RAW.
> 
> Why would that be?  Because of fantastic game design?  Because of wonderful fluff that inspires?  What possible reason could there be that people felt the need to chuck out large sections of 1e RAW?



Because they learned the game without ever owning the books themselves?* Because they bought the books and never read them completely or thoroughly, preferring to rely on anecdotal knowledge instead? Because they mixed and matched pieces from the different versions of _D&D_ that were all available at the time?

*I played _OD&D_ and the blue box and never gave the books more than a cursory scan - during the game I told the dungeon master what I wanted my character to do, and he told me what I needed to roll. It wasn't until 1e _AD&D_ that I actually started buying and reading the books myself, so I could be the dungeon master. I didn't buy a copy of _OD&D_ until 1979, after I purchased all three 1e _AD&D_ core books.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> You're missing the point RC.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there were extremely few groups out there that used 1e RAW.  I'd go a step further and say that the vast majority barely scratched the surface of the RAW.
> 
> Why would that be?  Because of fantastic game design?  Because of wonderful fluff that inspires?  What possible reason could there be that people felt the need to chuck out large sections of 1e RAW?





I would suggest that there were a number of factors:

(1)  1e actively _encourages_ you to alter the RAW.

(2)  Some systems (particularly the unarmed combat system) were dogs.  IMHO, of course.  (I think I have already agreed multiple times that the 3e RAW is, IMHO, better than the 1e RAW -- I just don't like to see it tarred for crimes it didn't commit!    ).  

(3)  Some players might have found the Gygaxian prose style difficult....although IME, more people actually read the 1e rules than read the 3e ones throroughly.  Moreover, many people I knew/know read 1e for _enjoyment_.  

Were I to guess, using my own experiences and those of people I know as a basis, I would say that (1) and (2) far exceeded (3).  


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Garnfellow said:
			
		

> We absolutely are all talking about the same Dragon. There was a very, very weird schizophrenia going on in that magazine during this time. The key is to read the Sorcerer's Scroll articles from the period -- while Dragon was producing some excellent variant rules, the Scroll was pushing a very limited and hyper-orthodox vision of what Official AD&D was -- and wasn't.
> 
> If you can get access to it, the Best of the Dragon volume II collects many of these articles in one place.





Again, I think that the DMG preface is pretty good overall for this, and gives a pretty clear idea of what was intended.  It describes an idea in which there are many unique campaigns, all of which have some points in common.  It goes further to say that the points in common do not have to be the same points.

I.e., the more points in common with the RAW your game has, the easier it is for a player to switch from another game to your game.  The more you change the RAW to suit your game world, the more unique and interesting that world will be.  The trick is trying to find the right balance point between the two goals.

Of course, EGG was a bit more wordy when he said it!    

That piece of advice, BTW, is as relevant today as it was when the 1e DMG was first printed.


RC


----------



## Kormydigar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> taking someone's shiny magic armor and weapon is grossly unfair, and has rendered that character now unlayable.




       No one wants to have sex with a character without shiny magic items!!!   I agree with the spirit of this post but some typos are just too funny.


----------



## Raven Crowking

The Shaman said:
			
		

> that brings us back to your previous post, which *Raven Crowking* has admirably addressed already.




I think that's the first time that "Raven Crowking" and "admirably" have ever been used in the same sentence.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kormydigar said:
			
		

> No one wants to have sex with a character without shiny magic items!!!   I agree with the spirit of this post but some typos are just too funny.




Of course.  If you don't have a Rod of Splendor or a Wand of Wonder, you won't be making any half-elves any time soon.


----------



## Mokona

Modern Ford cars look nothing like a Model T.  What is in a name?  D&D is still Dungeons & Dragons because the name affects how players use the game mechanics.  Just like the Ford name conveys a non-physical essence of the product.


----------



## The Shaman

Kormydigar said:
			
		

> No one wants to have sex with a character without shiny magic items!!!



"Yeah, I got your Rod of Lordly Might right here, baby..."


----------



## Lanefan

Mokona said:
			
		

> Modern Ford cars look nothing like a Model T.  What is in a name?  D&D is still Dungeons & Dragons because the name affects how players use the game mechanics.  Just like the Ford name conveys a non-physical essence of the product.



Let's take that analogy one step further, and say for argument's sake that the Model T was sold with the intent of being a tinkerer's car, simply designed yet as robust as it could be for its day.  And so people tinkered, and built the car they wanted...sometimes incorporating more modern technology as it came available, but still building on the basic model.   Fast-forward many years.  Ford are still making cars; they do more, go faster, are safer, etc., but are nowhere near as customizable.  Why?  Because the design philosophy has changed away from building cars for people to tinker with to build the car they want to one of building the car Ford thinks people will want - with a fully-integrated design in which individual components are much harder to change - and selling that.

The Model T is 1e...

Lanefan


----------



## jcfiala

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Let's take that analogy one step further, and say for argument's sake that the Model T was sold with the intent of being a tinkerer's car, simply designed yet as robust as it could be for its day.  And so people tinkered, and built the car they wanted...sometimes incorporating more modern technology as it came available, but still building on the basic model.   Fast-forward many years.  Ford are still making cars; they do more, go faster, are safer, etc., but are nowhere near as customizable.  Why?  Because the design philosophy has changed away from building cars for people to tinker with to build the car they want to one of building the car Ford thinks people will want - with a fully-integrated design in which individual components are much harder to change - and selling that.
> 
> The Model T is 1e...
> 
> Lanefan




Which makes modern cars being equivalent to 2nd edition, and kit cars being equivalent to 3rd?

After all, 3rd edition is so customizeable that Wizards lets other people publish supplements to it, even to the point where some crazy people are taking their Model T's and making trains out of them (Or making superhero games out of d20.).


----------



## Linus Lennox

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Work itself is no virtue, especially for entertainment. Work to a purpose can be, but me and four friends can have fun playing videogames or going to the movies, too, so there's no purpose in working on D&D. I pay money to be entertained, I don't pay money to do work.




I just wanted to quote this for truth, KM.  I think I often fall into the "Hard Work in Planning Adventures is Good" rather than reminding myself that it's a game, and the minute it stops being FUN is the minute to change things up.


----------



## Thurbane

...


----------



## Thurbane

Kormydigar said:
			
		

> No one wants to have sex with a character without shiny magic items!!!   I agree with the spirit of this post but some typos are just too funny.



ROFL  ...oops...

Reminds of some lewd comments involving a Rod of Lordly Might and a Pouch of Accessability...


----------



## Thurbane

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> (2)  Some systems (particularly the unarmed combat system) were dogs.  IMHO, of course.  (I think I have already agreed multiple times that the 3e RAW is, IMHO, better than the 1e RAW -- I just don't like to see it tarred for crimes it didn't commit!    ).



I couldn't agree with this sentiment more.


----------



## Hussar

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Because they learned the game without ever owning the books themselves?* Because they bought the books and never read them completely or thoroughly, preferring to rely on anecdotal knowledge instead? Because they mixed and matched pieces from the different versions of _D&D_ that were all available at the time?
> 
> *I played _OD&D_ and the blue box and never gave the books more than a cursory scan - during the game I told the dungeon master what I wanted my character to do, and he told me what I needed to roll. It wasn't until 1e _AD&D_ that I actually started buying and reading the books myself, so I could be the dungeon master. I didn't buy a copy of _OD&D_ until 1979, after I purchased all three 1e _AD&D_ core books.




Now THAT mirrors my experience with the game.    

For vehicular analogies, I prefer the following:

1e is an older Harley Davidson.  Loud, and very, very cantankerous.  But, it certainly draws looks when it goes down the road.  It begs to be modded and is certainly not for everyone.

2e is a 1982 Jaguar.  Very sleek, very pretty.  Drive it for two days, spend two weeks in the shop.

3e and 3.5 is a 2004 BMW Z3.  It's German engineered so it goes as soon as it hits the ground.  And it goes very well.  It's very rare that something goes wrong, but, when it does, it's going to be very, very expensive.  See the Haste spells of 3e or Polymorph fixing in 3.5.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> 3e and 3.5 is a 2004 BMW Z3.  It's German engineered so it goes as soon as it hits the ground.  And it goes very well.  It's very rare that something goes wrong, but, when it does, it's going to be very, very expensive.  See the Haste spells of 3e or Polymorph fixing in 3.5.





I keep telling you, 3e is just 1e with a lot of house rules......


----------



## Papewaio of The Org

My view on what is bad:

Too modern a perspective.  

Like news that is touted like TV or newspapers rather then town criers.
Magic is no longer magic.  It is just black box technology that you can go down to your local and buy off the shelf. How much _good _ fantasy literature has the adventurers going down to the local market and buying all the items they want.  It _is_ a staple in sci-fi to go out and buy the best or go to a black market to do so, but normally magic is treated as something special and not like a slushy at the local 7-11.

This is part and parcel with the powergaming design paradigm that the creators are pushing.  Just go and read about the most optimised character builds.  For instance where mithral chainmail was a reward to an elven hero by an elven clan and only rarely given to outsiders for exceptional circumstances it is now characterised as the optimum buy for a nightshirt.   The current official site is catering for lowest common denominator power gaming hack in slash, nothing wrong with that, just wish there was a higher fibre content for other gaming blends for us oldies   .

This easy access to special items diminishes the wow ohmygawd factor.  All items short of artifacts can be gathered at will.  Players optimise their characters, often using spreadsheets with look up tables of feat and item combos.  To make sure they can get into a prestige class...nice ironic title for something that isn't so prestigous because everyone and their dog can have one, no offense intended to werewolves.   ... they will also spend more time predesigning the optimum path for their character.   Its not special if everyone can do it.  The value in diamonds is not because they are shiny, it is because they are rare.

It leads to situations where players spend far more time designing the characters and tinkering with them then actually using them in combat let alone the meagre portion left over for a half nod to role-playing.

Having said the bad, now for the good.

Note that I said perspective.  The attitude may be sub-par but the core mechanics have improved.

The skill system, BAB and the way AC is handled vs the older systems such as THAC0 show that the mechanics have improved vastly.  It makes it easier to learn and allows more exceptions to be added... and the way most exceptions to the base rules are handled are as feats... a very very neat solution IMDHO

I wouldn't mind seeing the current skill system to be extrapolated one stage further... that it covers and includes combat.  You have a BAB based on skill points and it can be a cross-class skill.   Of course with BAB at present when compared to skills it is a three tier system full points, 2/3rd points and halfpoints... I wouldn't change that so much as make the skill system have 3 tiers of skills.  Full points... every point you spend gets you a skill rank, 2/3rds points every point you spend you get 2/3rds of a skill rank, 1/2 being the current cross-skill.

Just using the current system it would mean that you could start with a BAB of 4 as a fighter... so an offset might be needed, or not depending on how people feel about level 3 fighters having multiple attacks (beyond using two weapons, one weapon and shield, cleave ...)


----------



## Raven Crowking

Papewaio of The Org said:
			
		

> I wouldn't mind seeing the current skill system to be extrapolated one stage further... that it covers and includes combat.





My house rules do this.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

*Speaking of schitzophrenic.....*



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> You're missing the point RC.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there were extremely few groups out there that used 1e RAW.  I'd go a step further and say that the vast majority barely scratched the surface of the RAW.





BTW, speaking of schitzophrenic statements, are you aware how incongruous this is with your statement that you couldn't have a dwarven wizard because you were shackled by the RAW?


----------



## Flexor the Mighty!

Gary's opinion never stopped me from tossing out huge chunks of his system in 1e, comments in Dragon be damned.


----------



## Thurbane

Papewaio of The Org said:
			
		

> Like news that is touted like TV or newspapers rather then town criers.
> Magic is no longer magic.  It is just black box technology that you can go down to your local and buy off the shelf. How much _good _ fantasy literature has the adventurers going down to the local market and buying all the items they want.  It _is_ a staple in sci-fi to go out and buy the best or go to a black market to do so, but normally magic is treated as something special and not like a slushy at the local 7-11.



I feel almost exactly the same about this aspect. Magic items have really lost the "sense of wonder" they once had, when anyone with the right feats and a few XP to spare can churn them out assembly line style, or head down to the general store and buy up big. Needless to say, this wasone of the first things I houseruled when we went to 3.5 - the magic item creation system I use is a blend of 1E, 2E and 3.5. I also don't have "Ye Olde Magick Shoppe" for bargain basement Vorpal Swords and the like, although occasionally an item becomes availble for barter or purchase through a private owner.


> This is part and parcel with the powergaming design paradigm that the creators are pushing.  Just go and read about the most optimised character builds.  For instance where mithral chainmail was a reward to an elven hero by an elven clan and only rarely given to outsiders for exceptional circumstances it is now characterised as the optimum buy for a nightshirt.   The current official site is catering for lowest common denominator power gaming hack in slash, nothing wrong with that, just wish there was a higher fibre content for other gaming blends for us oldies   .



I also agree with this, too. I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with builds, optimisation and powergaming, but the really don't sit well with the style my group enjoys.


> This easy access to special items diminishes the wow ohmygawd factor.  All items short of artifacts can be gathered at will.  Players optimise their characters, often using spreadsheets with look up tables of feat and item combos.  To make sure they can get into a prestige class...nice ironic title for something that isn't so prestigous because everyone and their dog can have one, no offense intended to werewolves.   ... they will also spend more time predesigning the optimum path for their character.   Its not special if everyone can do it.  The value in diamonds is not because they are shiny, it is because they are rare.



Very true.


> It leads to situations where players spend far more time designing the characters and tinkering with them then actually using them in combat let alone the meagre portion left over for a half nod to role-playing.



Again, it's a matter of style preference, but I feel the same way.


> The skill system, BAB and the way AC is handled vs the older systems such as THAC0 show that the mechanics have improved vastly.  It makes it easier to learn and allows more exceptions to be added... and the way most exceptions to the base rules are handled are as feats... a very very neat solution IMDHO



Indeed.


> I wouldn't mind seeing the current skill system to be extrapolated one stage further... that it covers and includes combat.  You have a BAB based on skill points and it can be a cross-class skill.   Of course with BAB at present when compared to skills it is a three tier system full points, 2/3rd points and halfpoints... I wouldn't change that so much as make the skill system have 3 tiers of skills.  Full points... every point you spend gets you a skill rank, 2/3rds points every point you spend you get 2/3rds of a skill rank, 1/2 being the current cross-skill.
> 
> Just using the current system it would mean that you could start with a BAB of 4 as a fighter... so an offset might be needed, or not depending on how people feel about level 3 fighters having multiple attacks (beyond using two weapons, one weapon and shield, cleave ...)



Hmm, not to sure about that myself, I think it would be an unneccsary addition, but each to their own.


----------



## Hussar

> I feel almost exactly the same about this aspect. Magic items have really lost the "sense of wonder" they once had, when anyone with the right feats and a few XP to spare can churn them out assembly line style, or head down to the general store and buy up big. Needless to say, this wasone of the first things I houseruled when we went to 3.5 - the magic item creation system I use is a blend of 1E, 2E and 3.5. I also don't have "Ye Olde Magick Shoppe" for bargain basement Vorpal Swords and the like, although occasionally an item becomes availble for barter or purchase through a private owner.




Oh please do not turn this into another "sense of wonder" thread.  

As far as magic items being special, that varied hugely by game.  As I said before, I mostly played modules which meant that the party magic list was some four or five PAGES long.  It's pretty easy to be jaded when your paladin maxes out his allowable magic items by 3rd level.  The idea of adding in special stories or making magic items an "Ohmigosh" sort of thing doesn't exist in modules.

And, I would add that there were many, many articles in Dragon that talked about adding in that wonder factor back into the game.  So, I know that mine wasn't the only group doing that.  If we were the only ones, there would be no push to add the wonder back in.  

On the point about builds and the lack thereof in previous editions.  I'm sorry, but that's pretty disingeneous.  You didn't have builds in 1e and 2e because you couldn't.  Any and all building was done at 1st level and that was it.  The players were absolutely locked into a single path after chargen and could do extremely little to change that.  Yes, there was human dual classing, but, it was so difficult to do, that it was almost never done.  But, there's one thing about it, I've watched players sort through Dragon magazines and various other sources for HOURS trying to squeeze out a better deal at chargen time.  Powergaming and munchkinning have existed since day 2.  Heck, the Unearthed Arcana method for rolling character stats gives you NINE dice.

On Magic Shops.  You do realize that this doesn't actually exist anywhere in the rules.  And, there's absolutely nothing wrong with stating that you cannot buy X?  Also, except for extremely large cities, very little magic, even if you had magic shops, would be available?  The guidelines for town wealth are pretty clear and easy to use.  Don't want magic shops?  Don't go to huge cities.


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> As far as magic items being special, that varied hugely by game.  As I said before, I mostly played modules which meant that the party magic list was some four or five PAGES long.  It's pretty easy to be jaded when your paladin maxes out his allowable magic items by 3rd level.  The idea of adding in special stories or making magic items an "Ohmigosh" sort of thing doesn't exist in modules.



I tend to agree with your assessment of some of the prepublished modules, but in our group we never had much of a "Christmas tree" effect going. Maybe it was becuase we mainly played either self-written adventures or heavily modded modules...


> And, I would add that there were many, many articles in Dragon that talked about adding in that wonder factor back into the game.  So, I know that mine wasn't the only group doing that.  If we were the only ones, there would be no push to add the wonder back in.



To be honest I haven't bought a Dragon mag since back in the 2E days, so I couldn't really comment...


> On the point about builds and the lack thereof in previous editions.  I'm sorry, but that's pretty disingeneous.  You didn't have builds in 1e and 2e because you couldn't.  Any and all building was done at 1st level and that was it.  The players were absolutely locked into a single path after chargen and could do extremely little to change that.  Yes, there was human dual classing, but, it was so difficult to do, that it was almost never done.



I concede this somewhat - 3.X does allow for much more character flexibility mechanically than earlier editions. Having said that, I totally disagree that same level characters of the same race/class were carbon copies of each other. I never got that feeling in any 1E game I was involved in. Perhaps on paper they might seem so, but in practice I never found it to be the case. Player style, personality and many other factors serve extremely well to define a character's individuality - you don't need to have a radically different stat block to distinguish yourself from someone else, IMHO.


> But, there's one thing about it, I've watched players sort through Dragon magazines and various other sources for HOURS trying to squeeze out a better deal at chargen time.  Powergaming and munchkinning have existed since day 2.  Heck, the Unearthed Arcana method for rolling character stats gives you NINE dice.



If you read back through this thread, I have acknowledged that powergaming and min/maxing has been around long before 3E about three or more times now. It just happens to be my opinion that the current ruleset cater to and encourage this more than did earlier editions (in core-books terms). 

Just for the record, though, even back in 1E my group was pretty much core only, exactly like we are now. No DM I ever played under allowed the UA character generation system, for instance.


> On Magic Shops.  You do realize that this doesn't actually exist anywhere in the rules.  And, there's absolutely nothing wrong with stating that you cannot buy X?  Also, except for extremely large cities, very little magic, even if you had magic shops, would be available?  The guidelines for town wealth are pretty clear and easy to use.  Don't want magic shops?  Don't go to huge cities.



Oh, I am fully aware of that. I personally don't have a problem, as they simply do not exist in my game. Never have (in any edition), never will.

However, magic shops are, to my understanding, a fairly accepted feature of most published campaign worlds. And from what I read in various places, characters going out and buying hand picked magical gear is very common - otherwise, why would there be so many threads that start with "How much would this item cost?"...


----------



## MerricB

Thurbane said:
			
		

> However, magic shops are, to my understanding, a fairly accepted feature of most published campaign worlds. And from what I read in various places, characters going out and buying hand picked magical gear is very common - otherwise, why would there be so many threads that start with "How much would this item cost?"...




Heh.

You'll find in the very first _Gord the Rogue_ novel, Gary has Gord going into a shop in Greyhawk and buying a magic dagger (a rather special one at that!)

According to some versions of how AD&D was played, you needed to have masses of magic items around to compensate for every time they got toasted by _fireball_ or otherwise destroyed. 

Cheers!


----------



## Hussar

Thurbane said:
			
		

> To be honest I haven't bought a Dragon mag since back in the 2E days, so I couldn't really comment...




I was talking about 1e era Dragon mag's.  I had one with one of the chess board covers (very cool) which talked about adding all sorts of goodies to magic items to make them special.  Another 2e era article talked about making single use magic items to spice up the game because permanent plussed items were boring.  Another talked about adding side effects to magic items and came with a couple of hundred (Reprinted in the Encyclopedia Magica IIRC).

On magic shops.  I polled EnWorld about this a couple of months ago.  The spread was pretty much completely even from no to yes.  Take a look.  That one in particular seems to vary greatly depending on DM.


----------



## Thurbane

Hussar said:
			
		

> I was talking about 1e era Dragon mag's.  I had one with one of the chess board covers (very cool) which talked about adding all sorts of goodies to magic items to make them special.  Another 2e era article talked about making single use magic items to spice up the game because permanent plussed items were boring.  Another talked about adding side effects to magic items and came with a couple of hundred (Reprinted in the Encyclopedia Magica IIRC).



Ah, I misunderstood. Point taken, then.


> On magic shops.  I polled EnWorld about this a couple of months ago.  The spread was pretty much completely even from no to yes.  Take a look.  That one in particular seems to vary greatly depending on DM.



Interesting...


----------



## Hairfoot

Papewaio of The Org said:
			
		

> I wouldn't mind seeing the current skill system to be extrapolated one stage further... that it covers and includes combat.  You have a BAB based on skill points and it can be a cross-class skill.   Of course with BAB at present when compared to skills it is a three tier system full points, 2/3rd points and halfpoints... I wouldn't change that so much as make the skill system have 3 tiers of skills.  Full points... every point you spend gets you a skill rank, 2/3rds points every point you spend you get 2/3rds of a skill rank, 1/2 being the current cross-skill.



That's Rolemaster you're describing.  It had a good chargen system, and nicely simple in the cut-down Middle Earth Roleplaying version.  If only it was a game system with tables, rather than vice versa...


----------



## wedgeski

Hussar said:
			
		

> On magic shops.  I polled EnWorld about this a couple of months ago.  The spread was pretty much completely even from no to yes.  Take a look.  That one in particular seems to vary greatly depending on DM.



I think you'd have to be looking pretty askance at those numbers to call it 'even'!


----------



## Numion

wedgeski said:
			
		

> I think you'd have to be looking pretty askance at those numbers to call it 'even'!




Well, 46,5% have magic shops in their games.


----------



## wedgeski

Numion said:
			
		

> Well, 46,5% have magic shops in their games.



I suppose. It's all perspective I guess: I don't consider a mage who takes commission to build a magical item to be anything other than a magic shop, on legs, which orders on demand rather than maintaining stocks.  The ultimate effect on the game is the same.


----------



## Lanefan

MerricB said:
			
		

> According to some versions of how AD&D was played, you needed to have masses of magic items around to compensate for every time they got toasted by _fireball_ or otherwise destroyed.



That's about how I do it...easy come, easy go.  Magic item shopping is possible, but unless they're looking for something real simple there's a chance they won't find it...

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

wedgeski said:
			
		

> I suppose. It's all perspective I guess: I don't consider a mage who takes commission to build a magical item to be anything other than a magic shop, on legs, which orders on demand rather than maintaining stocks.  The ultimate effect on the game is the same.



Not really; the difference being a commissioned item takes (or should take) a long time to build; some months or even a year or more, and not all PC's are willing to wait.  A magic shop, on the other hand, has the item *right now*.

Lanefan


----------



## Ourph

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Not really; the difference being a commissioned item takes (or should take) a long time to build; some months or even a year or more, and not all PC's are willing to wait.  A magic shop, on the other hand, has the item *right now*.
> 
> Lanefan




That's obviously not true by the 3e RAW, magic items take on the order of days or weeks, perhaps months for the really expensive items to produce.  If a character wants some +5 armor he's got to wait less than a month to get it.  Most "magic shops" deal in the low-end items like wands of Cure Light Wounds anyway, which take only a day to make.  So the difference between a brick-and-mortar magic shop and buying items on commission is negligible.  The commissioned NPC is basically a walking magic item vending machine.


----------



## Lanefan

Ourph said:
			
		

> That's obviously not true by the 3e RAW, magic items take on the order of days or weeks, perhaps months for the really expensive items to produce.  If a character wants some +5 armor he's got to wait less than a month to get it.  Most "magic shops" deal in the low-end items like wands of Cure Light Wounds anyway, which take only a day to make.  So the difference between a brick-and-mortar magic shop and buying items on commission is negligible.  The commissioned NPC is basically a walking magic item vending machine.



Time for some minor house-ruling, then.  No magic item should take less than a week to make, from start to finish; what were the rule-writers thinking???

Lanefan


----------



## jcfiala

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Time for some minor house-ruling, then.  No magic item should take less than a week to make, from start to finish; what were the rule-writers thinking???
> 
> Lanefan




Actually, I'm thinking that if the high-powered magic items being so powerful is a problem, then what's needed is to up the time costs for making them.  Instead of 1,000 gp a day (+3 sword in 18 days, +5 sword in 50 days) you could do something like square the result - something along the lines of a +3 sword in 162 days or a +5 sword in 2,500 days (or about 8 years).  That would reduce the chance of a walking commission for god-killing weapons while still allowing the wizards to make use of their Scribe Scroll feat.  (That said, 8 years sounds a little high for the +5 weapon...)


----------



## Numion

Lanefan said:
			
		

> Time for some minor house-ruling, then.  No magic item should take less than a week to make, from start to finish; what were the rule-writers thinking???
> 
> Lanefan




No need to houserule. The mage working on order isn't churning them out 24/7. He might have other orders, or he might need a pause to work up the exp.


----------



## MerricB

If there's a 15th level wizard or cleric in a 3e town making +5 armours on commissions... well, obviously that's rather exceptional. 

Cheers!


----------



## jcfiala

Numion said:
			
		

> No need to houserule. The mage working on order isn't churning them out 24/7. He might have other orders, or he might need a pause to work up the exp.




"Look, I'd love to make your sword for you, but I'm all outta juice.  I'll get right back on your commission, but first I need to head south and take care of this band of kobold bandits that are raiding our supply caravans first.  Be back in a week, unless this is the beginning of one of those 'mega-modules', in which case I won't have it finished until next year.  You never know."


----------



## MerricB

jcfiala said:
			
		

> Actually, I'm thinking that if the high-powered magic items being so powerful is a problem, then what's needed is to up the time costs for making them.  Instead of 1,000 gp a day (+3 sword in 18 days, +5 sword in 50 days) you could do something like square the result - something along the lines of a +3 sword in 162 days or a +5 sword in 2,500 days (or about 8 years).  That would reduce the chance of a walking commission for god-killing weapons while still allowing the wizards to make use of their Scribe Scroll feat.  (That said, 8 years sounds a little high for the +5 weapon...)




If you have PC wizards making +5 or better weapons, then it's going to slow down the campaign to a more reasonable speed than I've noted in either AD&D or D&D. 

If a PC can drop 50,000 gp to commission a +5 weapon, what level is he?

Cheers!


----------



## Ourph

Numion said:
			
		

> No need to houserule. The mage working on order isn't churning them out 24/7. He might have other orders, or he might need a pause to work up the exp.




Placing flavor obstacles in the way of getting an item isn't any different than making a houserule that does the same thing mechanically.  Either way, the DM is forcing the players into a "mother-may-I" situation.


----------



## Lanefan

MerricB said:
			
		

> If you have PC wizards making +5 or better weapons, then it's going to slow down the campaign to a more reasonable speed than I've noted in either AD&D or D&D.



I just don't see this as what PC's do.  PC's adventure, they fight things, they Do Deeds, and they find neat stuff...that someone else made!  A PC's place is in the field, not the item-construction shop.

If a PC wizard wants to spend time building items rather than adventuring, then fine; as long as the player knows the PC is going to miss the next several adventures while so engaged, and that none of time, levels, or the activities of the rest of the world are going to stop and wait till she's done.

This, in fact, might hearken back to the start of this enormous thread: the soul of the game.  I suggest the game's soul resides in the field-adventuring party, and things like this sitting around waiting for the wizard to build items is rather soulless.

Lane-"how many other 1000-post threads have there been?"-fan


----------



## Thurbane

Ourph said:
			
		

> Placing flavor obstacles in the way of getting an item isn't any different than making a houserule that does the same thing mechanically.  Either way, the DM is forcing the players into a "mother-may-I" situation.



What??? Not having an NPC mage just bumming around, idle, waiting for a PC to place an order for an item, is considered "Mother may I?"...holy crap, and people think my feeling that player entitlement is at an all time high is misplaced...


----------



## Lanefan

Ourph said:
			
		

> Placing flavor obstacles in the way of getting an item isn't any different than making a houserule that does the same thing mechanically.  Either way, the DM is forcing the players into a "mother-may-I" situation.



What's all this with the mother-may-I stuff, said as if it's the Worst Possible Thing In Gaming?  Players and their PC's are *not entitled* to have the game provide them any items they want, whether by adventure treasury, store buy, or commission build; yet the tone of the mother-may-I complaints would seem to suggest that they are.  Same goes for feats, non-core supplements, and so on...it's the DM's call, people.  Always has been.

Lanefan


----------



## Papewaio of The Org

Lanefan said:
			
		

> If a PC wizard wants to spend time building items rather than adventuring, then fine; as long as the player knows the PC is going to miss the next several adventures while so engaged, and that none of time, levels, or the activities of the rest of the world are going to stop and wait till she's done.




Or the time between adventures is spent on creating items.  At least that way characters will age more then 3 days between leveling up, 60 days from first to twenty is a bit quick.  Add in some time to make items and such (which is just an accounting process to add a bit of time to the age of the characters) and you end up with a slightly more realistic progression.  More flavour and you still actually spend the game time focus on adventuring.


----------



## Glyfair

Lanefan said:
			
		

> What's all this with the mother-may-I stuff, said as if it's the Worst Possible Thing In Gaming?




I think the "mother-may-I" complaints have morphed from the original problem referred to.  

The "mother-may-I" issue is when a character has an ability that only works based on an on-the-fly decision by the DM.  It usually also requires the character to try to use the ability before he has any idea whether it will work.  It also usually will have widely variable responses from different DMs.

For example, say a player is playing OD&D and wants to try to disarm their opponent they are fighting.  There are no rules about that in OD&D (and if there are, for this example say there aren't), so it requires the DM to decide whether it's possible.  If it is, he has to decide how difficult it is, and how he will resolve it.  

Possible responses (based on various styles I've seen in other situations):

"No way that will work.  He's a trained fighter and no experienced trained fighter would allow himself to be disarmed."

"That seems stylish, make an attack at -2 and if ylou succeed it works."

"OK, make an attack roll against the opponent, with modifiers for the smaller size of the sword.  Good, you hit the sword.  Now, make a Dex roll to try to catch it the right way.  Good, now make a Str check vs. his Str check to hold it.  Good, it's in the air.  Now he gets a Dex check to catch it before it hits the ground."

The problem is compounded if it requires the character to committ to it before he even knows how likely it is to succeed or how the DM willl adjudicate it.  Maybe the weapon in the above example is the MacGuffin the players need, and the character has to put himself in a near suicidal position is the maneuver fails.  Imagine doing this with the DM with the exaggerated idea of a trained fighter's skills.

That's the  "mother-may-I" situation that's mostly been complained about, not "can I find someone to make this magic item."


----------



## Thurbane

Lanefan said:
			
		

> What's all this with the mother-may-I stuff, said as if it's the Worst Possible Thing In Gaming?  Players and their PC's are *not entitled* to have the game provide them any items they want, whether by adventure treasury, store buy, or commission build; yet the tone of the mother-may-I complaints would seem to suggest that they are.  Same goes for feats, non-core supplements, and so on...it's the DM's call, people.  Always has been.
> 
> Lanefan



Comments like that will get you blackballed with some folks around here! 

Heaven forbid the DM have some control in his game...


----------



## I'm A Banana

> The "mother-may-I" issue is when a character has an ability that only works based on an on-the-fly decision by the DM. It usually also requires the character to try to use the ability before he has any idea whether it will work. It also usually will have widely variable responses from different DMs.




Agreed. "Mother-may-I" is what happens when a PC has an ability and it's actually the DM who uses it, rather than giving a player control of his own abilities.



> Placing flavor obstacles in the way of getting an item isn't any different than making a houserule that does the same thing mechanically. Either way, the DM is forcing the players into a "mother-may-I" situation.




I don't think this is a "mother-may-I" situation. The world, including the NPC's and treasure, is the DM's purview. The DM has control over the rescources the party acquires, and she should, it's one of the ways she can manipulate the feel of the campaign, the difficulty of encounters, and the nature of the setting. You should be asking the DM for permission for acquiring your specialty magic items.


----------



## Numion

Ourph said:
			
		

> Placing flavor obstacles in the way of getting an item isn't any different than making a houserule that does the same thing mechanically.  Either way, the DM is forcing the players into a "mother-may-I" situation.




No, that just isn't so. They have different effects on the game. Changing the item creation rule means that they can never get any item they need custom made faster. DM deciding what the NPC mage does with his time is just the ordinary business of running the game. Meta-game versus in-game. You have a very simplistic view of the game. 

For example, changing the rule does not include any adventure hooks. The second option does - the negotiation with the NPC mage. "Say .. if we solve this problem of yours and torch your competitors laboratory, would that make the _Dinner Plate of Low Carbs_ come any faster?"


----------



## Garnfellow

thedungeondelver said:
			
		

> I'm becoming increasingly convinced that you cherry pick out the things you don't like about an edition of D&D you don't play any more for the sole purpose of slagging said edition of D&D on web boards that'll listen to you.



I think you are really barking up the wrong tree here. Merric is probably the most even-handed defender of all editions of the game. Why don’t you take a deep breath, and remember, we’re all just talking about games where big, grown, bearded men roll dice and pretend to be elven sorceresses fighting goblins, acidic jellos, and floating balls of eyes that shoot death rays. It's really nothing more than that.


----------



## Kormydigar

Lanefan said:
			
		

> I just don't see this as what PC's do.  PC's adventure, they fight things, they Do Deeds, and they find neat stuff...that someone else made!  A PC's place is in the field, not the item-construction shop.
> 
> If a PC wizard wants to spend time building items rather than adventuring, then fine; as long as the player knows the PC is going to miss the next several adventures while so engaged, and that none of time, levels, or the activities of the rest of the world are going to stop and wait till she's done.
> 
> This, in fact, might hearken back to the start of this enormous thread: the soul of the game.  I suggest the game's soul resides in the field-adventuring party, and things like this sitting around waiting for the wizard to build items is rather soulless.
> 
> Lane-"how many other 1000-post threads have there been?"-fan




QFT Man!  I worked on a solution to this problem for my next campaign. I am removing all item creation feats except scribe scroll and brew potion and replacing them with some other feats. For magic item creation I am making up the Artificer base class. Members of this class cannot multiclass, and earn thier XP from crafting and enchanting items. No XP can be earned through adventuring activities. The class will have access to all spell lists (and be able to specialize in arcane or divine) but only the "enchant" versions of the spells can be cast. By doing this the world has creators of magic gear that actually IMPROVE at thier job as they work, instead of retarding thier progress, and adventurers can get on with the business of saving the world.


----------



## Ourph

Thurbane said:
			
		

> What??? Not having an NPC mage just bumming around, idle, waiting for a PC to place an order for an item, is considered "Mother may I?"...holy crap, and people think my feeling that player entitlement is at an all time high is misplaced...




GEEZ people, lighten up!  I'm not using "mother may I?" in a pejorative sense.  I'm saying that there's no difference, from the player's perspective, if the NPC takes 2 months to make the +1 sword because "he just can't get around to it" or if the DM's houserules say that's how long it takes.  It's still the DM deciding for the player when that magic item is available.  I DO NOT THINK THIS IS A BAD THING (as some of you seem to have assumed).  I think any responsible DM does this.

My original point was simply that if your goal is to increase the time it takes for a PC to acquire an item, there's no real difference between having an in-game and a meta-game reason for the delay.  Obviously, if you have other goals (i.e. - RP goals, world simulation goals, etc.) there can be a huge difference.



			
				Numion said:
			
		

> You have a very simplistic view of the game.




You have a very poor grasp of nuance.


----------



## The Shaman

It would be a shame to see this thread closed.


----------



## Justin Bacon

Ourph said:
			
		

> GEEZ people, lighten up!  I'm not using "mother may I?" in a pejorative sense.  I'm saying that there's no difference, from the player's perspective, if the NPC takes 2 months to make the +1 sword because "he just can't get around to it" or if the DM's houserules say that's how long it takes.  It's still the DM deciding for the player when that magic item is available.  I DO NOT THINK THIS IS A BAD THING (as some of you seem to have assumed).  I think any responsible DM does this.




Actually, there's a key difference here: If the DM's house rules say X, the player has presumably seen these houserules. And even if the DM creates the house rule for X right on the spot, then they will presumably be part of the house rules from now on.

In either case, there's a predictability there: The player knows what to expect and can plan their actions accordingly.

In a mother-may-I scenario, the player doesn't know what to expect: Any time they go to get an item crafted, the waiting period will fluctuate at the DM's whim. The success or failure of their plans will depend on whether or not the DM likes the idea of them having item X.

Now, in the specific example you've proffered, there's considerable gray area: It's clearly a mother-may-I situation (since the DM is deciding on-the-fly whether a particular item will be available to them on a case-by-case basis by deciding on a case-by-case basis how long it will take them to commission the item). OTOH, it's not unreasonable for a DM to say: "There's only 25 people in this village and none of them know the spells or have the material they need to craft the item you're looking for."

IMO, the question of whether or not this is a true mother-may-I scenario depends on whether the DM is leaving options open for the PCs to pursue: Is he saying "this particular wizard has a backlog of items" because that's legitimately true, or is he saying it because he doesn't want the PCs to have item X?

And that basically comes down to a simple question: Is there anybody else in the world we could go to and get this item?

Personally, as a DM, I use the Community Wealth and Population guidelines in the DMG (pg. 137) as a starting point. But since I find the assertion in that section that every single magical item with a value of less than 40,000 gp should be "most likely" available in a community of 12,000 people (if you do the full math suggested in that section, it turns out that -- just using the magic items in the DMG -- every single person in the town has something like a half dozen magic items). So I tend to use an uncodified set of guidelines which roughly looks at what percentage of the community's GP limit any give item's value is, and then roll some percentiles to see whether it's available.

And I also generally treat magic items, in general, as a class of items -- so the upper limit of magic items available in a typical community is half the GP limit times 1/10th the population. (This value is finagled quite a bit depending on the "feel" of the community -- if it's a highly magical city, then there's more magic available. If it's a rough frontier town, there'll be less magic available.)

Anyway, I'm rambling. And this, like I say, is largely an uncodified "back of the envelope" calculation just to give me a rough idea of what should be available.

Is the Random Town Generation informatio and/or GP limit rules in the SRD? I don't think so, but does anybody know?


----------



## Lanefan

Kormydigar said:
			
		

> I worked on a solution to this problem for my next campaign. I am removing all item creation feats except scribe scroll and brew potion and replacing them with some other feats. For magic item creation I am making up the Artificer base class. Members of this class cannot multiclass, and earn thier XP from crafting and enchanting items. No XP can be earned through adventuring activities. The class will have access to all spell lists (and be able to specialize in arcane or divine) but only the "enchant" versions of the spells can be cast. By doing this the world has creators of magic gear that actually IMPROVE at thier job as they work, instead of retarding thier progress, and adventurers can get on with the business of saving the world.



And if commissioning an item from them takes a bit of time, such that they're not an on-demand magic shop with feet, you might have hit on a rather elegant solution here.  I'd also give them some divination spells, to make them game-useful as information sources about found items...at a price, of course. 

Mind if I steal this one?

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Justin Bacon said:
			
		

> Actually, there's a key difference here: If the DM's house rules say X, the player has presumably seen these houserules. And even if the DM creates the house rule for X right on the spot, then they will presumably be part of the house rules from now on.
> 
> In either case, there's a predictability there: The player knows what to expect and can plan their actions accordingly.
> 
> In a mother-may-I scenario, the player doesn't know what to expect: Any time they go to get an item crafted, the waiting period will fluctuate at the DM's whim. The success or failure of their plans will depend on whether or not the DM likes the idea of them having item X.



Sounds just fine to me.  There's a random element also, or should be; the dice might say that something that shouldn't normally be available is (a party just came back from a big adventure in the mountains; they're loaded with loot they want to sell, and this tiny village you're in just happens to be where they're spending the night), or that something you'd always expect to find is sold out (someone's bought up every +1 longsword in Waterdeep for reasons known only to herself).

Same for item creation; this tiny village might be home to a master artificer, now mostly retired...or, the artificers' guild in Greyhawk might have walked off the job and nobody's getting anything made for a while.  Same for getting high-level spells (wish, resurrection, etc.) cast.  Nothing is certain...

Lanefan


----------



## jcfiala

The Shaman said:
			
		

> It would be a shame to see this thread closed.




Well, it's a shame to see any thread close, but this one's had a good run, and it's possible we've hit all the points of discussion by now.


----------



## The Shaman

jcfiala said:
			
		

> Well, it's a shame to see any thread close, but this one's had a good run, and it's possible we've hit all the points of discussion by now.



The thread petering out for lack of new content is one thing, being shut down for rude comments something else entirely.


----------



## Numion

What I think irks DMs in magic item creation by PCs and buying them is this: as a DM when designing an adventure the DMs puts there neat magic items that he would like the PCs to get (after maybe being used against them). The DM has spent effort on this, and the items _are_ cool.

But then the PCs come, they bag the loot, cart it of to the nearest wizard in the business, sell the stuff and buy items _they_ want. At least that's what annoyed me when I started 3E. 

But after _playing_ (as in being a player instead of DM) 3E I noticed that from that POV it's actually great that I can customize my items. Maybe there's less sense of wonder from the DMs point of view, but not from the players. At least in my mind. The DM planted items great history etc. don't matter to me or my character squat compared to what I have accomplished with it. For example: I don't care if my bow was the one used to destroy the great wyrm dragon _Fieryballs_ 1000 years ago. I care much more that I slew an adult dragon with it just last week. 

I get much more sense of wonder from customizing my own bows flames to be silvery colored after my characters name, than .. you get the point.

Besides, if I make a really cool magic item the players will want to keep it for its own sake, and not just because customized ones werent available.


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## Plane Sailing

The Shaman said:
			
		

> It would be a shame to see this thread closed.




I also think it would be a shame to see this thread closed because of rudeness or snarkiness.

I've just deleted two posts on this page, and I'm prepared to delete other posts which even border on being rude or condescending. The moderators are also in email contact with certain people about their posts.

And if anyone thinks its clever to try to torpedo this thread by being deliberately rude* in it after this warning, I'm willing to hand out a three day ban.

* that includes attempting to provoke other people too

Regards,


----------



## Hussar

Numion said:
			
		

> What I think irks DMs in magic item creation by PCs and buying them is this: as a DM when designing an adventure the DMs puts there neat magic items that he would like the PCs to get (after maybe being used against them). The DM has spent effort on this, and the items _are_ cool.
> 
> But then the PCs come, they bag the loot, cart it of to the nearest wizard in the business, sell the stuff and buy items _they_ want. At least that's what annoyed me when I started 3E.
> 
> But after _playing_ (as in being a player instead of DM) 3E I noticed that from that POV it's actually great that I can customize my items. Maybe there's less sense of wonder from the DMs point of view, but not from the players. At least in my mind. The DM planted items great history etc. don't matter to me or my character squat compared to what I have accomplished with it. For example: I don't care if my bow was the one used to destroy the great wyrm dragon _Fieryballs_ 1000 years ago. I care much more that I slew an adult dragon with it just last week.
> 
> I get much more sense of wonder from customizing my own bows flames to be silvery colored after my characters name, than .. you get the point.
> 
> Besides, if I make a really cool magic item the players will want to keep it for its own sake, and not just because customized ones werent available.




I can agree with this.  As a DM, it did bother me when the players chucked out my nifty _lumpy metal thing of doom_ in favour of something they could buy.  I got over it though.  I've come to the opinion that their character's are their's.  It's the only thing in the game they have control over.  Allowing them to have a very high degree of control makes them happier, so, who am I to get in the way of that?  

As DM's we control just about every aspect of the game.  Why not allow the players to help out by controlling their ends of things?  Within reason of course, I'm not talking about allowing stuff that doesn't fit in a campaign, so please, no cries of stripping all power from the DM.  

A personal anecdote.  Back in 2e, I played a paladin with a bad DM.  Hit the level to go get my mount.  So, I borrowed from whatever book I happened to be reading at the time (Adam's Bili the Axe IIRC) and asked if my mount could have low level telepathy with me.  I wanted something a little funkier than a standard horse and I really liked the books.  The DM was fairly non-commital.  Fast forward to mount getting time and my telepathic horse somehow morphed into Battle Kitty, a smilodon riding cat.  :/  I was so disappointed in this that I refused the mount.  It just did not remotely fit in with my concept.  The DM was so pissed off about this that he made my character unplayable (not too hard with a paladin).

I think letting players have control over the characters that the DM allows in his campaign (added that caveat to stop the complaining) is not a bad thing.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> A personal anecdote.  Back in 2e, I played a paladin with a bad DM.  Hit the level to go get my mount.  So, I borrowed from whatever book I happened to be reading at the time (Adam's Bili the Axe IIRC) and asked if my mount could have low level telepathy with me.  I wanted something a little funkier than a standard horse and I really liked the books.  The DM was fairly non-commital.  Fast forward to mount getting time and my telepathic horse somehow morphed into Battle Kitty, a smilodon riding cat.  :/  I was so disappointed in this that I refused the mount.  It just did not remotely fit in with my concept.  The DM was so pissed off about this that he made my character unplayable (not too hard with a paladin).




Yeah, I've heard this anecdote before, and I agree with you that it sucks.  Not that the idea of the Battle Kitty necessarily sucks, but it sucks that the DM knew exactly what you had hoped for, and didn't care at all.  (I am assuming, of course, that all paladins in that world did not have Battle Kitties.....or you would have been expecting this.)

But I do not think that this is the same thing as allowing treasure to be endlessly morphable, which is essentially what 3e set up.  Nor do I believe that role-playing game rules should be set up on the basis of the "worst possible scenario".  That is simply self-defeating.  If you have a bad DM, it doesn't really matter what the rules are.  Even within the context of the rules system, a DM who is out to get you will always win.

IMC, I introduced a varient that allows for the creation of _some_ items ala standard 3.5, but limits which specific items/item qualities you can create.  So, if it is terribly important to you that you can make an Apparatus of Kwalish, you can do that....without turning into Bill the Wandering SuperMagicMart.  Players still get to select (via crafting or commission) some specific items without any change, but because each feat represents the _potential_ to learn how to craft an item (plus some specific examples of that potential, chosen by the player, and added to automatically every X levels, where X varies by Item Creation Feat) magic items themselves retain something of thier pre-3e sense of wonder.

Win-win on both sides of the screen, IMHO.    


RC


----------



## Numion

I'd like it if my players sometimes made their own items. They don't like losing XP, so a fat chance of that  :\


----------



## Raven Crowking

Numion said:
			
		

> I'd like it if my players sometimes made their own items. They don't like losing XP, so a fat chance of that  :\




Varient rules like power components and levin (Advanced Gamemaster's Manual) can be used to substitute in-game effort for XP, and can add a lot of flavour to the process.  IMHO, of course.   

It helps if you think about what kind of things you want your players to do, and then build in means to reward those types of actions.  For example, if you want PCs that craft items, you can build rewards around crafting that offset the penalties.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> magic items themselves retain something of thier pre-3e sense of wonder.




Hussar teased out this comment earlier, but I'm going to tease it out, too, since it is repeated:

Why did buckets of +x swords have a sense of wonder in earlier editions that 3e has lost?

Is it just because the NPC's in the world couldn't make/replace them, or know that much about them unless they were a sage?


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Hussar teased out this comment earlier, but I'm going to tease it out, too, since it is repeated:
> 
> Why did buckets of +x swords have a sense of wonder in earlier editions that 3e has lost?
> 
> Is it just because the NPC's in the world couldn't make/replace them, or know that much about them unless they were a sage?





You know, in doing my rewrite of the 3e rules, this is the thing that I've had to give the most thought to.  Exactly why were 1e items more wondrous-seeming than 3e items?  I think it boils down to a number of factors:

1.  Buckets of +x weapons are never wondrous.  This is because anything that appears to have been made via assembly line simply lacks that sense of wonder.  In a D&D sense; there are some very nice automobiles out there.

2.  Unique items are wondrous.  

a.  Older editions were full of items that had cool effects one simply could not duplicate short of having the item.  Since not every item was a "spell in item form" items themselves could have a mystique all their own.

b.  Older editions, with strict DM control of items, allowed the DM to place _the_ Vorpal Sword.  There was no guarantee that any given item existed in a campaign world, let alone more than one item.

c.  Older editions were replete with magic items that the players simply could not know about until they encountered them.  The unknown is interesting; this is why so many modules introduce new monsters and new magic.

d.  This means that you can make the "lightning rail" wondrous simply because not everyone can have one.​
3.  Any item that merely boosts a number, such as a +x sword, is inherently less wondrous than something that allows you to do something you couldn't without the item, such as a _Cloak of the Manta Ray_.

SOLUTIONS

1.  No magic shops.  Individual crafters are fine, but every item should seem to be individually crafted insofar as it is possible.  Even that +1 dagger should have a smith's mark....and the smiths should have some interesting background as well.  In other words, _know where the magic items you placed in your campaign come from, at least tangentially._

2.  Name items whenever possible.  Encourage PC crafters to name their items.  Have items named when delivered by NPC crafters.

a.  Come up with the means to create "special effects" that do not replicate spells.  IMC, this falls under the title "Secrets" and are things PCs can learn.

b.  The creation of every item requires a Secret, and just because a PC knows it doesn't mean anyone else does.  So, when a PC creates a Vorpal Sword, the DM can easily make it _the_ Vorpal Sword.....or at the very least, an incredible achievement to every NPC they meet.

c.  Don't tell the PCs all the possible Secrets.  Better yet, make sure that the players know that they can _create new Secrets that only their PCs know_.

d.  This actually isn't a problem.​
3.  Campaigns require stat boost items, so _earrings of swimming_ and _+3 bohemian earspoons_ are going to exist.  You can either make them interesting in terms of presentation (this polearm channels part of its last owner's skill), description (earrings of bone and coral, shaped like twin fish), or function (you can share the earrings with one other character; each of you gains only 1/2 the bonus from wearing only one of the earrings).  Or else you can just accept that this particular item isn't going to be wondrous; it is simply background.

Admittedly, my solution complicates things a bit, and it means that balance requires more DM attention than in standard 3e.  But it is fun, and it allows for a wider range of effects without slapping the words "minor artifact" on every item that breaks the mold.

YMMV, of course.

RC


----------



## Hussar

RavenCC said:
			
		

> It helps if you think about what kind of things *you want your players to do*, and then build in means to reward those types of actions. For example, if you want PCs that craft items, you can build rewards around crafting that offset the penalties.((Bold mine))




See, now that's a big difference right there.  I don't really want my players to do anything.  That's their job.  They are the ones who have to want to do things.  I simply provide the vehicle for that.  I oppose the idea that the DM should be trying to steer the game so to speak.  There's other people at the table and it's every bit their game as well.

Yes, to some degree, in game you need to provide hooks and hints as to where the players can go to do stuff, but, that's very, very different from providing carrots and sticks to guide the players into playing the game the way I want to play it.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> See, now that's a big difference right there.  I don't really want my players to do anything.  That's their job.  They are the ones who have to want to do things.  I simply provide the vehicle for that.  I oppose the idea that the DM should be trying to steer the game so to speak.  There's other people at the table and it's every bit their game as well.





Hussar, I take it from many posts on many threads that you are pretty happy with 3.5, right?  And, I assume, you are well aware that 3.5 (like all versions of the game) has built-in systems that give rewards or penalties based upon the decisions of the players.  Those systems also include subsystems by which the DM is allowed to reward decisions that he or she believes are worth rewarding.

I am not only talking about the XP system here.  I am talking about placement of monsters, chances to use skills, placement of treasure, and even simple things like racial penalties and how they interact with class abilities.

These are not only okay things for a game system; they are necessary things.

You say that you don't really want your players to do anything.  I submit that this is not true.  To use an utterly silly example, you certainly want them to show up for the game and play their characters.  You want them to have fun.

Moving a little farther from the silly, I am well aware that you are running a WLD campaign.  No doubt you know that some character concepts are better suited for the WLD than others.  I imagine that you _generally_ want the players to choose characters suited for the WLD, if only because they'll have more fun, even if you don't _specifically_ want to limit anyone's choices.

Moving farther yet, you probably want them to get involved with the dungeon, and explore it, rather than sit in the first room in Section A and starve to death.  This doesn't mean that you're going to _force them_ to not starve to death.....but I feel fairly certain that you would hope they were motivated to do something, and would encourage them in that direction.

Every setting (_even_ the blandest, most vanilla setting) rewards some actions.  Every setting perforce gives greater weight to some in-game actions than others.  What I am suggesting is that, as DM, if there is something you want to explore, _you should give your players motive to do so_.  If you want your players to talk to NPCs, you need to give them someone worth talking to.  If you want your players to _trust_ NPCs, you'd better give them opportunity to learn early and often that this type of behavior will typically be rewarded.

(This is, really, no different than choosing to run a game system because it has a built in bias that you enjoy....such as the over-the-top action, combat-oriented focus of 3.5.....or choosing a setting such as the WLD because it provides encounter opportunities that you will enjoy.)

Frankly, there is no way to DM a game without influencing players through the challenges you create (or run), the way you run them, and the way you dish out information and rewards.  Pretending otherwise not only does a disservice to you (because you cannot effectively determine what you want, and how to get it), but it does an enormous disservice to your players (because you cannot effectively communicate your desires, and how those desires affect the game world -- leaving them to guess what will, and will not, be rewarded).  Admitting that you do so, and examining how best to do so, can help ensure both that you and your players are a good fit, and that your players understand the dynamics by which your game world operates.


RC


----------



## MerricB

Lanefan said:
			
		

> I just don't see this as what PC's do.  PC's adventure, they fight things, they Do Deeds, and they find neat stuff...that someone else made!  A PC's place is in the field, not the item-construction shop.
> 
> ...
> 
> This, in fact, might hearken back to the start of this enormous thread: the soul of the game.  I suggest the game's soul resides in the field-adventuring party, and things like this sitting around waiting for the wizard to build items is rather soulless.




It's funny; you can turn that quote around for the training rules (where it takes 1-4 weeks to gain a level), and then AD&D is soulless because you have to wait around for PCs to gain a level rather than be out there adventuring! 

As an aside, I've used training rules in every version of the game I've DMed, and all of them have been swiftly discarded. They make sense, they aren't hard to incorporate, but the disruption they cause to time-dependent plots has never been worth it for me. 

I wonder how many people still pay strict attention to TIME, as noted by Gary in the original DMG? There does seem to be an assumption there that play of D&D is very frequent.

Here's something to consider: If you only have magic items through adventuring, when powerful magic items come up, how much do they skew the character towards being defined only by the magic item? For instance: "The PC with the vorpal sword".

Personally, I think there are a range of boring workhorse magic items - there's possibly more in 3e than 1e, but some of that may just be the result of 20+ years of familiarity with them - and then there are the really rare and interesting magic items. That's one reason I like _Weapons of Legacy_ so much - all the items are unique, and, with the ones in my campaigns, the PCs don't know what the new abilities will be until they gain the appropriate levels.



> Lane-"how many other 1000-post threads have there been?"-fan




Don't ask! 

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Admittedly, my solution complicates things a bit, and it means that balance requires more DM attention than in standard 3e.  But it is fun, and it allows for a wider range of effects without slapping the words "minor artifact" on every item that breaks the mold.




Indeed. Fun is important, isn't it. 

Just another point of comparison between AD&D and 3e: new magic items tended to appear more in AD&D adventures. Thus, as part of the adventure module, the players would have no idea of what they'd found... once items appeared in Unearthed Arcana, the mystique was broken to some extent. 

Cheers!


----------



## jcfiala

jcfiala said:
			
		

> 40d6 is nothing to sneeze about, I'll say, but there *are* save or die effects.  Phantasmal Killer is a 4th level spell which is save (twice) or die, Trap the Soul is a save or leave the game for a long time effect, and Symbol of Death is another save or die.
> 
> What dc13 effect are you thinking of?  I'm thinking of the fact that if someone is nth level, and they take n or more negative levels, they die right _then_ - no 'save in 24 hours to get it back', no more saving throws - dead.
> 
> Like it or not, negative levels and some spells are save or die effects - as is the 50 hp in one wound save - it may not be easy for 8th level characters to fail a DC 15 Fortitude save, but they *can* fail it if they roll a 1 on the die.




I've discovered another method to die in 3rd edition!  If a Shadow drains your STRENGTH down to 0, then you die and come back as another Shadow.


----------



## I'm A Banana

RC said:
			
		

> (snipping some good stuff]
> 
> Admittedly, my solution complicates things a bit, and it means that balance requires more DM attention than in standard 3e. But it is fun, and it allows for a wider range of effects without slapping the words "minor artifact" on every item that breaks the mold.




I see what you're saying. To a certain extent, I agree.

However, even in core 3e, there's unique magic items. The concept of "lesser artefacts" and intelligent weapons, and construct-creatures gives much significance and history to the magic items, but these come only at a fairly late levels. It seems that, at lower levels, what you call "background items" are the norm, but 3e certainly doesn't lack these kinds of items (they just are rare)

Do you think the new magic item format, the existence of things like _Weapons of Legacy_ and the upcomming _Magic Item Compendium_ help alleviate this problem without forcing so much change?

So is it still accurate to say that points a through d are more strongly represented in earlier editions? Since 3e magic items are often do things that spells cannot (the lion's shield? The rhino hide armor?), the magic item distribution is still in the hands of the DM (vorpal swords can still be unique, and Weapons of Legacy is filled with unique items), the magic item creation system assures that new weapons (even storied ones) can be introduced reliably (thus having new items unknown to the players appear), and still, not everyone can have your magic (adventurers being an elite lot, and high-level adventurers being, by the RAW, limited to the deepest centers of population and being a very, very small percentage of the habitation of the world). 

What I see today in D&D is "buckets of +1 swords commissioned at the local forge" existing alongside of "sacred special items of deep history and campaign signficance," and it's all available with a DM owning the core, and enriched by a DM owning supplements designed to enrich that aspect. In the core, it's available through unique items (weapons, armor, wonderous items...), minor artifacts, and intelligent items, though it's not often available to low-level adventurers (because, in the theory of the rules, no 3rd level sellsword should be wieldilng a blade of the greatest world power). In the supplements, it's more available at a lower level and grows along with the character, providing world information as its power is increased (Weapons of Legacy) and always having a story behind it's development (the new Magic Item format). 

Do you see that, or do you see it more in earlier editions with good DMs (ones who specifically made buckets of +x items significant...because D&D has *always* been about buckets of +x items. )?


----------



## Hussar

RC - I'd buy that.  Yes, there are some situations where rewarding player behaviour is the way to go.  If you want a high rp game, then obviously something has to be added (like people to talk to) to acheive that.

I guess I differentiate somewhat between some of those goals.  To me, I prefer the lightest touch possible in the game.  I would prefer to react to what the players want rather than try to push what I want onto the players.  Now, again, this also gets into campaign creation which is entirely the purview of the DM.  

I have no problem with the DM at the outset of the game saying, "I want to run X, who's with me?"  That's fine.  But, to me, X is going to be pretty broad - Dungeon crawl, high rp, political, whatever.  So long as whatever the player wants jives with that broad statement, I'm pretty content.  

So, I have no interest in changing mechanics beyond what I need to to construct the campaign.  Starting to monkey with fiddly bits does not appeal to me whatsoever.  I want to play the game, not be a game designer.  You mention that I prefer the 3.5 system.  That's true and that's why.  I have found, over the past several years, that I can rely on the mechanics of 3e very heavily and not have to tinker with anything.

Sorry, meandered far there for a bit.

See, you keep saying _encourage_ the players to do something.  Why?  Why should I have to?  The players are there to play, presumably.  I set the stage, arrange the chairs, turn on the lights.  I have no problem with the players spending three sessions in a bar if that's what they want to do.  If the players sat in a single room slowly starving to death, I'd probably be annoyed, but, thankfully, that would likely never happen.  Most players are actively engaged in the game, rather than passively being poked and prodded and led by the nose to dance to whatever tune I prefer.

In my last campaign, a high rp game set in Shelzar (Scarred Lands), I tossed out hook after hook and basically let the players do whatever they pleased.  Their actions had consequence, of course, since the setting wasn't static, but, there was certainly no larger story and no particular actions I wanted them to do.

As I've said many times before, I strive to be as neutral as possible in the game as I DM.  Granted, it's impossible to be entirely neutral, but, that's the goal.  If the players head down alleyway X, then Y happens, if they don't, then it doesn't.  

Then again, I ran Keep on the Borderlands without any rewriting either.  Never bothered.  You've brought up the WLD a few times, and said that you felt that it needed a massive rework.  And that's fine, for you.  For me, I run it almost entirely as is.  I've added this or that bit, because I wanted to and I thought it might be interesting.  But, largely, the WLD has been almost verbatim in my game.  Like I said, the lightest of touches is the way I DM.  I have zero interest in playing The Greatest Game.  I'm content with Pretty Damn Good.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> See, you keep saying _encourage_ the players to do something.  Why?  Why should I have to?  The players are there to play, presumably.  I set the stage, arrange the chairs, turn on the lights.  I have no problem with the players spending three sessions in a bar if that's what they want to do.  If the players sat in a single room slowly starving to death, I'd probably be annoyed, but, thankfully, that would likely never happen.  Most players are actively engaged in the game, rather than passively being poked and prodded and led by the nose to dance to whatever tune I prefer.




Encouraging the players to interact with the game world _is_ part of setting the stage, as I see it.  As with your last campaign, my DMing style consists of allowing the PCs to do what they will, with plenty of hooks and things going on around them.

I dislkike the idea of shooting from 1-20 in three weeks of game time.  I addressed that as part of campaign creation.  I dislike the idea of magic item shops.  I addressed that as part of campaign creation.  I like the idea that the PCs have the ability to truly change their world.  I addressed that as part of campaign construction.

For me, fiddling with the bits is part of campaign construction.  I imagine that I am not alone there.  After all, popular campaign worlds like Eberron, Scarred Lands, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, and Midnight all have special rules.  The designers made their worlds unique, in part, by fiddling with the fiddly bits.

This is even true for the WLD, which suggests some different mechanics to deal with things like XP progression and teleportation spells.



> You've brought up the WLD a few times, and said that you felt that it needed a massive rework.  And that's fine, for you.  For me, I run it almost entirely as is.  I've added this or that bit, because I wanted to and I thought it might be interesting.  But, largely, the WLD has been almost verbatim in my game.  Like I said, the lightest of touches is the way I DM.  I have zero interest in playing The Greatest Game.  I'm content with Pretty Damn Good.




First off, the rewriting that I feel the WLD needs has nothing to do with the fiddly bits and everything to do with rewriting descriptions and expanding encounters.  Some of the descriptions just suck.  The room in Area B where the goblins' statue is -- but isn't mentioned in the description -- is probably the worst.  In other rooms, the room conditions are given, but nothing in the description makes it clear why that condition exists in that room.  

WLD is a huge project, and limitations in the material are not too surprising.  This isn't a huge crit (although it is in some sections!).  When I ran WLD, I certainly had no interest in trying to "guide" the PCs through the sections I found interesting.  One thing I did do, though, was provide maps to speed up "empty hallway" time in Section A!

Second, trying to run The Greatest Game One is Capable Of is the only way I know of to ensure that one's game is Pretty Damn Good.

YMMV.


RC


----------



## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Do you think the new magic item format, the existence of things like _Weapons of Legacy_ and the upcomming _Magic Item Compendium_ help alleviate this problem without forcing so much change?




I didn't mean to suggest that 3e had no unique magic items; merely that it is far harder to believe in uniqueness when one can easily reproduce most effects.  There are dozens of threads on EN World wherein people have positted that the rules of 3e _by logical necessity_ give rise to magic shops, or magic street lighting, etc.  While I don't believe this to be true (and have posted often on that topic!), my solution at least offers some concrete _reason_ why it is not true without nerfing the ability to make magic items.

Also, I don't think that change, if it is an improvement, is something to avoid.  As I said, my game is largely built off modified 3.5 rules, not 1st edition.  



> Do you see that, or do you see it more in earlier editions with good DMs (ones who specifically made buckets of +x items significant...because D&D has *always* been about buckets of +x items. )?




I don't believe that D&D ever had to be about buckets of +x items.  Because you need the buffs more in 3e, those +x items are probably more important.  Actually, that is one of the reasons I use Weapon Skills....you can modify your attack or damage rolls without needing magic to do so.


RC


----------



## TheAuldGrump

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> SOLUTIONS
> 
> 1.  No magic shops.  Individual crafters are fine, but every item should seem to be individually crafted insofar as it is possible.  Even that +1 dagger should have a smith's mark....and the smiths should have some interesting background as well.  In other words, _know where the magic items you placed in your campaign come from, at least tangentially._
> 
> 2.  Name items whenever possible.  Encourage PC crafters to name their items.  Have items named when delivered by NPC crafters.
> 
> a.  Come up with the means to create "special effects" that do not replicate spells.  IMC, this falls under the title "Secrets" and are things PCs can learn.
> 
> b.  The creation of every item requires a Secret, and just because a PC knows it doesn't mean anyone else does.  So, when a PC creates a Vorpal Sword, the DM can easily make it _the_ Vorpal Sword.....or at the very least, an incredible achievement to every NPC they meet.
> 
> c.  Don't tell the PCs all the possible Secrets.  Better yet, make sure that the players know that they can _create new Secrets that only their PCs know_.
> 
> d.  This actually isn't a problem.​
> RC




I agree that it is not necessary to have 'magic item shops', and prefer the 'individual crafter' approach (with exceptions for the Iron Kingdoms, where there are _factories_ pumping out some of the most common mechanikal items, mostly to military orders).

I like the idea of 'secrets', and I am likely to steal and modify this idea.  Secrets can also be a form of treasure - where PCs find how vorpal weapons are made from the notebooks of a sword smith/mage, or reverse engineer from a found vorpal weapon, risking its destruction in the process.

The Auld Grump


----------



## Raven Crowking

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> I like the idea of 'secrets', and I am likely to steal and modify this idea.  Secrets can also be a form of treasure - where PCs find how vorpal weapons are made from the notebooks of a sword smith/mage, or reverse engineer from a found vorpal weapon, risking its destruction in the process.





Feel free to steal the idea!

That Secrets can be a form of treasure is _exactly_ my intention!


RC


----------



## Lanefan

MerricB said:
			
		

> It's funny; you can turn that quote around for the training rules (where it takes 1-4 weeks to gain a level), and then AD&D is soulless because you have to wait around for PCs to gain a level rather than be out there adventuring!
> 
> As an aside, I've used training rules in every version of the game I've DMed, and all of them have been swiftly discarded. They make sense, they aren't hard to incorporate, but the disruption they cause to time-dependent plots has never been worth it for me.



Sometimes it becomes a decision for the players; to stop and train and risk unpleasant developments later, or leave off training till later and carry on with less than maximum abilities.



> I wonder how many people still pay strict attention to TIME, as noted by Gary in the original DMG? There does seem to be an assumption there that play of D&D is very frequent.



If you're referring to the bit about out-of-game andf in-game time passing at the same rate between sessions, I've never used that.  If it's 4:30 p.m. on Aves 23, 759 when one session ends, it's 4:30 p.m. the same day when that party's next session starts.  So yes, I pay attention to time, but it has nothing to do with real-world time at all. 



> Here's something to consider: If you only have magic items through adventuring, when powerful magic items come up, how much do they skew the character towards being defined only by the magic item? For instance: "The PC with the vorpal sword".



Except in rare instances, not often at all.  Sometimes, when the party has temporary use of something spectacular, it can for that time come to define its bearer, but even then the PC is almost always referred to by name.

Lanefan


----------



## FireLance

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Because you need the buffs more in 3e, those +x items are probably more important.



You know, I've seen this point of view expressed several times, and it only just struck me that it isn't really true. A 20th-level fighter in 3.5e armed with just a normal longsword, shield and chain mail isn't going to be able to take on a CR 20 challenge, but a 20th-level fighter in any edition armed with the same non-magical equipment isn't going to be able to handle the really tough opponents, either. In any edition, the character is going to have to take on easier challenges than a better-equipped character of the same level.


----------



## Raven Crowking

FireLance said:
			
		

> You know, I've seen this point of view expressed several times, and it only just struck me that it isn't really true. A 20th-level fighter in 3.5e armed with just a normal longsword, shield and chain mail isn't going to be able to take on a CR 20 challenge, but a 20th-level fighter in any edition armed with the same non-magical equipment isn't going to be able to handle the really tough opponents, either. In any edition, the character is going to have to take on easier challenges than a better-equipped character of the same level.





True.  But previous editions didn't make assumptions about how encounters would scale with PCs in terms of the power level of individual opponents.  In 1e, higher level adventures could often include more mooks, as well as some more powerful opponents.  Also, as many have pointed out, regardless of how you or I played it, 1e was not focused on beating your enemies as much as it was on stealing their stuff.

Of course, there were monsters that required magic weapons to hit them, and they would be pretty difficult to deal with without gear.  OTOH, not every tough monster in 1e required magic weapons to hit it.  You could quite easily run a 1e game without ever using a monster with "DR".  Nor did more powerful monsters necessarily need high (low) ACs.  In 1e, you designed the monster as you thought it should be, then tallied up its abilities to determine its XP value, then used that XP value to determine its effective threat range.

MerricB's analysis of the combat threat posed by creatures in the 1e MM, while somewhat flawed, still points out that a high-level fighter with chain mail and a longsword _could_ take out at least some of those threats.  Obviously, more if there were a larger party (which, again 1e assumes more than 3e).

You can play 3e that way, of course, but you are "going against the grain" when you do so.

I guess another way of putting it is this:  Until 3e, I never heard anyone claim that the rust monster was "broken" or "unfun" simply because it ate metal items.


RC


----------



## billd91

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> I guess another way of putting it is this:  Until 3e, I never heard anyone claim that the rust monster was "broken" or "unfun" simply because it ate metal items.




In fairness, there was a lot less communication in general between widespread groups as well. The internet's rise certainly contributes to our sense of people complaining about things that we didn't see people complain about in the old days.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Maybe, but I played with disparate people over several states, and in two countries, and still never heard that complaint.

RC


----------



## Crothian

With more people to hear from, there are more complaints.  There are complaints I'm hearing now about 1e that I never heard before.  I hear new complaints about these games all the time.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Well, that's true.  Some people here seem to have had tons of problems with 1e that never appeared in any game I participated in, either as DM or player.


----------



## MerricB

I don't think I've ever heard a complaint about the rust monster before now.

OTOH, I've never seen one used, either. 

Cheers!


----------



## BroccoliRage

you guys are all about beating dead horses, aren't you?


----------



## Odhanan

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> you guys are all about beating dead horses, aren't you?



Dead, rotting horses indeed. Mean spirited ENWorlders!


----------



## Lanefan

BroccoliRage said:
			
		

> you guys are all about beating dead horses, aren't you?



Absolutely!  That's what keeps 'em dead.  Otherwise, they regenerate, and we have to start all over again.....

Lanefan


----------



## Psion




----------



## Raven Crowking

MerricB said:
			
		

> I don't think I've ever heard a complaint about the rust monster before now.
> 
> OTOH, I've never seen one used, either.




Really?  That's actually kinda interesting.  I've used lots of rust monsters in my time, and I've encountered them in others' games.  The idea of using rust monsters to find veins of ore in another thread is a real-game situation.

You've never even seen one used in a module?


RC


----------



## Lanefan

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Really?  That's actually kinda interesting.  I've used lots of rust monsters in my time, and I've encountered them in others' games.  The idea of using rust monsters to find veins of ore in another thread is a real-game situation.
> 
> You've never even seen one used in a module?



Closest I've ever come to running one intentionally as DM was in a module that had one written in, in a room the party never went to.  The only other one my game has seen was the result of a wild-magic surge summoning a random creature....

Lanefan


----------



## Silver Moon

MerricB said:
			
		

> I don't think I've ever heard a complaint about the rust monster before now.
> OTOH, I've never seen one used, either. Cheers!



Have the playing characters work on a "Rust Monster Farm" for a while!   Anybody can herd cows, goats or chickens, try to get wild rust monsters in line without using anything metal!


----------



## Thurbane

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> Have the playing characters work on a "Rust Monster Farm" for a while!   Anybody can herd cows, goats or chickens, try to get wild rust monsters in line without using anything metal!



Rawhide whips and wooden cattleprods!


----------



## MerricB

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Really?  That's actually kinda interesting.  I've used lots of rust monsters in my time, and I've encountered them in others' games.  The idea of using rust monsters to find veins of ore in another thread is a real-game situation.
> 
> You've never even seen one used in a module?




No. Don't think so. I have a pretty good collection of adventures (Dungeon, 1e, 3e) and I really can't recall them being used. Hmm.

Cheers!


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I thought it was ironic that shortly after this thread, I got a recent Dungeon and the second Savage Tide AP installment has a rust monster.  And, ironically enough, the wizard is beating it to death when the party finds it.  

As I said before, while I'm sure there are all sorts of interesting ways to introduce a rust monster, my point is still the same.  The actual encounter of the party and the rust monster will almost always be the same - the wizard going out and beating it to death with a club.  Whoopee.  It's a trap.  Or rather a hazard, since hazards can move.  Like the Ogre Mage, a complete waste of space in the Monster Manual.

Take a look at the Ecology of the Ogre Mage from Dragon 150.  A CR 15 Ogre Mage (with levels of fighter and Samurai (IIRC)) with a 130 hit points.  A 15th level party is doing a 150 points of damage in a round.  Heck, the fighter by himself is likely doing that much damage at that level.  This isn't a challenge, it's a joke.  It steps up and is immedietely blatted by the party.  I would much rather see the lower CR'd Ogre Mage brought into play and then used.  At least then it would actually survive more than a single round.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> As I said before, while I'm sure there are all sorts of interesting ways to introduce a rust monster, my point is still the same.  The actual encounter of the party and the rust monster will almost always be the same - the wizard going out and beating it to death with a club.  Whoopee.  It's a trap.  Or rather a hazard, since hazards can move.  Like the Ogre Mage, a complete waste of space in the Monster Manual.





(Shrug)

To each his own pudding, I suppose.  I've had rust monsters used in lots of ways, although as far as _actual combat_ goes, it would usually be the rogue or druid, not the wizard.  In 3e, where rust monsters can and do inflict real damage, simply sending in the wizard is not always viable.


RC


----------



## RFisher

Hussar said:
			
		

> The actual encounter of the party and the rust monster will almost always be the same - the wizard going out and beating it to death with a club.  Whoopee.  It's a trap.  Or rather a hazard, since hazards can move.




For me the rust monster was always inspiration. Can't you imagine how that first encounter with a rust monster might have gone? Call it a trap or a hazard or whatever...but it was a memorable encounter.

The point of having the rust monster in the MM (IMHO) is less to actually use it as-is but to show DMs another avenue for creating memorable encounters. (&, perhaps, to give the players notice that such unique encounters are meant to be a part of the game.)


----------



## Hussar

Do you honestly remember your first encounter with a rust monster?  To me, a memorable encounter isn't one that is just "poof" oh ha ha, naked fighter.  

Orcs, despite appearing in dozens, if not hundreds of published adventures, can still be entirely unique and interesting.  Yet, an orc is a pretty boring creature on its own.  No special abilities to speak of, just a strong human with a bad haircut.  Same with goblins really.  Yet, "Bree Yark" is still remembered by long time gamers today.

That's what a monster should be.  Granted, it's unrealistic to think that every monster in the MM will acheive this, but, the goal of the MM should be to show creatures that can be used in the widest possible ways.  If the Rust Monster appeared in a supplement, I wouldn't worry about it at all.  Wouldn't bother me in the least.  But, to have it in core means that other creatures, ones that are a heck of a lot more versatile, aren't.


----------



## wildstarsreach

Overall the soul is secure.  The mechanics have changed but not that much as to make the game unrecognizable from its beginnings.


----------



## Geron Raveneye

Hussar said:
			
		

> Do you honestly remember your first encounter with a rust monster?  To me, a memorable encounter isn't one that is just "poof" oh ha ha, naked fighter.




Actually, that *is* a memorable encounter. Very memorable, even, seeing as many "first encounters" with rust monsters will happen when most or all players at the table are in the 13-15 years range. In that kind of group, it indeed is memorable when the "almighty" fighter, who attacked this pathetic, relatively peaceful monster, suddenly stands around in his underdrawers and tries to hide behind the magic-user or the thief to keep that monster from eating his precious sword, too. It usually led to rounds of laughter. Remember, maybe, that at that age one friend's embarassment still served as entertainment for all others. And yes, in those times, every character got his share of embarassment, so everybody had something to laugh about.  

What always surprises me is how many people actually find the rust monster bland, "unfun" (what an unword  ) or plain silly. Even more surprising is that folks prefer to talk about them critters in metagame terms like threat categories or "dungeon decoration". It's a rust monster, the wizard's pet and revenge monster. And if you check how it used to be, and compare it to how it is now, you might see that it didn't use to be the ultimate threat to heirloom, precious magical weapons or armor, or all the other stuff it's made out to be. It was the semi-cute, very fighter-annoying pet a wizard unleashed a small group of when those pesky adventurers (with fighters in the majority, usually) came to loot his tower. That's it. And it's a shame it seems to have grown into some trauma-inducing creature by today.  

Sorry for the rant, people bashing Rusty always make me overprotective.


----------



## Raven Crowking

As much as I agree with Geron Raveneye, Hussar, I would be interested to see how you would write up the rust monster as a hazard.


----------



## Hussar

I actually suck pretty hard at making new mechanics, but, here goes:  Using the Forest Fire as a source.

Rust Monster (CR 1)

A relatively innocuous creature, the rust monster has the ability to devour metals.  Frequently hungry, they move towards the largest source of metals as fast as they can.

A rust monster can be spotted as far away as 2d6X10 feet by a character who makes a spot check against a medium sized creature.  It moves towards them at a rate of 50 feet per round.  

Treat the rust monster as a medium sized creature for size and space rules.  If it moves into contact with a character, it destroys up to a 10 foot cube of metal every round.  Magical metal items make a Reflex save at DC 17 or be destroyed.

A rust monster will feed up to 5 times before becoming satiated and moving away.  Treat the rust monster as an object with a hardness of 5 and 30 hit points.  

How's that?


----------



## Geron Raveneye

Hussar said:
			
		

> I actually suck pretty hard at making new mechanics, but, here goes:  Using the Forest Fire as a source.
> 
> Rust Monster (CR 1)
> 
> A relatively innocuous creature, the rust monster has the ability to devour metals.  Frequently hungry, they move towards the largest source of metals as fast as they can.
> 
> A rust monster can be spotted as far away as 2d6X10 feet by a character who makes a spot check against a medium sized creature.  It moves towards them at a rate of 50 feet per round.
> 
> Treat the rust monster as a medium sized creature for size and space rules.  If it moves into contact with a character, it destroys up to a 10 foot cube of metal every round.  Magical metal items make a Reflex save at DC 17 or be destroyed.
> 
> A rust monster will feed up to 5 times before becoming satiated and moving away.  Treat the rust monster as an object with a hardness of 5 and 30 hit points.
> 
> How's that?




To be honest...and please don't get this wrong, this is not meant as a personal attack or anything...it's patently boring. Not from the execution, that looks as good as any I've seen in a WotC sourcebook. It's the concept of a creature as an object or a hazard that makes it boring in my eyes. Creatures are creatures, objects are objects, and hazards are hazards. Creatures have quirks, backstories (often invented by the individual DM), and sometimes even personalities. Neither a trap nor a hazard comes with those traits...usually, that is. Classifying a rust monster, a piercer, a trapper or a mimic as anything but a monster simply takes a lot out of them, for me. Maybe that's personal perception and preference..it most likely is...but hey, this is a game about imagination, and a quirky monster fires mine up more than a weirdly-shaped hazard or a trap looking like a monster.

Maybe I'm simply against the over-simplification that comes with trying to stuff as much game material as possible under the same mechanical umbrella. I mean, with this approach, what keeps us from reducing everything, monsters, traps, hazards etc. to simple "Events" that can be described with an easily modified set of parameters, and be done with it? There's so many creatures that have a modus operandi comparable to a trap or a hazard that we probably could cut 1/3rd from the various MM and put them into the DMG III or whatever.  

But basically, I feel that creatures should stay creatures, and not be treated as traps or hazards. Otherwise, and this is a little piece of hyperbole I'm sure, a rogue could easily argue that an aimed blow with a two-handed sword is not so different from a guillotine blade swinging from the ceiling, so why can't he get his Reflex save and Evasion against it? After all, he's always trying to dodge a falling blade...


----------



## RFisher

Hussar said:
			
		

> Do you honestly remember your first encounter with a rust monster?




I wasn't talking about _my_ first encounter with a rust monster. I'd already read the MM before I even _could_ have encountered one. I was talking about _the_ first encounter with a rust monster.

I _do_ remember encounters with similar unique monster created by the DM.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> I actually suck pretty hard at making new mechanics, but, here goes:  Using the Forest Fire as a source.
> 
> Rust Monster (CR 1)
> 
> A relatively innocuous creature, the rust monster has the ability to devour metals.  Frequently hungry, they move towards the largest source of metals as fast as they can.
> 
> A rust monster can be spotted as far away as 2d6X10 feet by a character who makes a spot check against a medium sized creature.  It moves towards them at a rate of 50 feet per round.
> 
> Treat the rust monster as a medium sized creature for size and space rules.  If it moves into contact with a character, it destroys up to a 10 foot cube of metal every round.  Magical metal items make a Reflex save at DC 17 or be destroyed.
> 
> A rust monster will feed up to 5 times before becoming satiated and moving away.  Treat the rust monster as an object with a hardness of 5 and 30 hit points.
> 
> How's that?




I note that in the MM description, when you begin wailing on it with your club, it bites back, doing hit point damage.  Your hazard does not.  I note also that in the MM description, the damage (rusting) is not automatic (it requires an attack roll).  In your hazard it is.  What about using metal weapons to attack it?


----------



## Hussar

As I said RC, I suck at making mechanics.  However, it's not a bad start and with a bit of spit and polish it works.

SR - yup, it's boring.  Because I find rust monsters insipid and boring.  I believe that's the point I've beaten about several times.  They can't talk, they don't really threaten to do enough damage to worry about, all they do is scare fighters.  Snore.  I'd much rather see these kinds of monsters - and I include oozes in here as well - either massively redone or done away with.


----------



## VirgilCaine

Hussar said:
			
		

> Take a look at the Ecology of the Ogre Mage from Dragon 150.  A CR 15 Ogre Mage (with levels of fighter and Samurai (IIRC)) with a 130 hit points.  A 15th level party is doing a 150 points of damage in a round.  Heck, the fighter by himself is likely doing that much damage at that level.  This isn't a challenge, it's a joke.  It steps up and is immedietely blatted by the party.  I would much rather see the lower CR'd Ogre Mage brought into play and then used.  At least then it would actually survive more than a single round.




Why would you give an Ogre *Mage* _Fighter_ and _Samurai_ levels? 

They make excellent assassins with their invisibility and gaseous form abilities...getting out is a problem, though. 
In a straight up fight can significantly aid allies vs. PCs with infinite invisibility and darkness spells, especially if another ally is a bard with Sculpt Sound spells to remove those pesky stomping sounds (and don't forget cone of cold. ).


----------



## Hussar

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> Why would you give an Ogre *Mage* _Fighter_ and _Samurai_ levels?
> 
> They make excellent assassins with their invisibility and gaseous form abilities...getting out is a problem, though.
> In a straight up fight can significantly aid allies vs. PCs with infinite invisibility and darkness spells, especially if another ally is a bard with Sculpt Sound spells to remove those pesky stomping sounds (and don't forget cone of cold. ).




Appoligies, Fighter and Kensai.  

Nevertheless, it was still a CR 17 creature with 131 hit points.  That's not a challenge, that's a joke.


----------



## Geron Raveneye

Hussar said:
			
		

> SR - yup, it's boring.  Because I find rust monsters insipid and boring.  I believe that's the point I've beaten about several times.  They can't talk, they don't really threaten to do enough damage to worry about, all they do is scare fighters.  Snore.  I'd much rather see these kinds of monsters - and I include oozes in here as well - either massively redone or done away with.




That's luckily a matter of taste, and as much as I hate the rest of the D&D bloat, I always liked the fact they were trying to cater to every kind of taste from every edition on with their monsters, from the whimsical to the decidedly deadly.  I guess I'm more of a silly kind of person where my preferred monsters come in. Maybe that's why I also like rust monsters and their kind...they always showed that D&D disn't take itself so seriously that you couldn't get a laugh out of a naked fighter, a thief eaten by the treasure chest, or walking psychedelic mushrooms. I think that is a not so small part of the "soul of D&D"...the different kinds of humor. If you ever had an iron statue run like hell from a flock of baby rusties, climbing up an oak tree to get away from them, or a mimic with a _Charm Monster_ laid on it playing Luggage to your wizard, complete with eating careless handlers, you really appreciate them being in there. Sure, humor is something highly individual, but that's no reason why they should try to cut out every humorous bit of game material out of D&D just because some people might not appreciate it (that explanation from the Game Designers still sits badly with me  ) I've seen adventurer parties throw the best-looking character to a succubus for her pleasure without him agreeing just for a piece of information, and everybody laughing about it (and the DM being generous enough NOT to drain said character dry in more than one way). I've seen gnomes glue thieves to the wall they were climbing desperately to get away from hellhounds, and wizards trying to freeze dragons to the floor with a _Rock to Mud_/_Mud to Rock_ spell combo to the ceiling, and everybody laughed about the ensuing chaos when the group tried to divide the hoard up immediately...until the dragon broke out and fried them all. And the last time I used an ooze, the group nearly killed the elf in trying to get it off of his face...which was hilarious, except for the elf, of course, but didn't keep the following battle with a tribe of pain-loving humanoids from being a pretty gritty and deadly affair.

Maybe it's simply not your kind of humor, or the kind of game you'd like to be playing, but that's personal taste, right? Should every piece of the game be evaluated for their threat value only, and for how they can be optimized for a 4-round combat? I sure hope not.  It would make D&D an even more boring game than it already threatens to be by now with people more busy crunching the numbers than playing their character (yeah, I know, hyperbole...I call it personal anecdotes, sadly :\ )


----------



## The Shaman

"...'I don't like this' does NOT equal 'this is primitive/incomplete/badly designed'." - *Old Geezer*, from *RPG.net*


----------



## VirgilCaine

Hussar said:
			
		

> Appoligies, Fighter and Kensai.
> 
> Nevertheless, it was still a CR 17 creature with 131 hit points.  That's not a challenge, that's a joke.




A 17th level wizard could have 131 hitpoints. Or less. 
If it had been given levels of a spellcasting class or twice the levels it was given in Ftr/Kensai (it's nonassociated class, IMHO), it would be an appropriate challenge.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> "...'I don't like this' does NOT equal 'this is primitive/incomplete/badly designed'." - Old Geezer, from RPG.net




Unfortunately, with regards to tabletop RPG's, he's mostly wrong. If there's a beastie that doesn't fit in most games, it is badly desgined. If there's an improvement on an existing system, the older system is primitive. If the new thing does something the old thing tried to do but could not, the old thing was incomplete. 

If I don't like something because it doesn't fit in my games, because it doesn't incorporate improvements, or because it doesn't accomplish something that it sets out to accomplish....it is primitive, incomplete, and/or badly designed.


----------



## Geron Raveneye

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Unfortunately, with regards to tabletop RPG's, he's mostly wrong. If there's a beastie that doesn't fit in most games, it is badly desgined. If there's an improvement on an existing system, the older system is primitive. If the new thing does something the old thing tried to do but could not, the old thing was incomplete.
> 
> If I don't like something because it doesn't fit in my games, because it doesn't incorporate improvements, or because it doesn't accomplish something that it sets out to accomplish....it is primitive, incomplete, and/or badly designed.




Yeah, but KM, is it so easy to get an unbiased and entirely objective point-by-point comparison that clearly shows what doesn't fit/is an improvement/doesn't accomplish something, especially where tabletop RPGs and the opinions of those playing them are concerned? I think not, and this board is a good example for exactly that problem.


----------



## Hussar

VirgilCaine said:
			
		

> A 17th level wizard could have 131 hitpoints. Or less.
> If it had been given levels of a spellcasting class or twice the levels it was given in Ftr/Kensai (it's nonassociated class, IMHO), it would be an appropriate challenge.




Yup, and a 17th level wizard would have 9th level spells.  Certainly a CR 17 encounter.  A CR 17 Ogre Mage would have 9 levels of wizard.  Woo, 5th level spells.  Against 17th level characters.  Again, it's a joke.

The Shaman - It's not that I don't like the Rust Monster.  I just don't think that one trick pony creatures that lead to identical encounters should be included as a monster.  The Green Slime and the Fungi were moved into Hazards for exactly this reason.  They aren't monsters, they're living traps.  Which, IMO, is precisely what a rust monster is.  

Look, I'm not saying that there is no room for the rust monster.  That's not it at all.  What I'm saying is there's a better place for a creature like the rust monster and most of the oozes as well - Hazards.  Save the Monster Manual for things that can actually be used in the widest number of campaigns.


----------



## The Shaman

Wow, those are some really unhelpful generalities, *Kamikaze Midget*, but no matter:







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> If there's a beastie that doesn't fit in most games, it is badly desgined.



"Doesn't fit?" That's your interpretation, based on your personal preferences.







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> If there's an improvement on an existing system, the older system is primitive.



"Improvement," again, is a matter of personal preference.







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> If the new thing does something the old thing tried to do but could not, the old thing was incomplete.



And I have no idea what you're talking about.







			
				Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> If I don't like something because it doesn't fit in my games, because it doesn't incorporate improvements, or because it doesn't accomplish something that it sets out to accomplish....it is primitive, incomplete, and/or badly designed.



Once again you slip into the fallacy of claiming that your personal preferences represent some sort of objective truth applicable to all gamers.

*Old Geezer* is on the money, *Kamikaze Midget*, and your protestations only serve to emphasize that.


----------



## tx7321

As others have stated, 3E D&D is no longer the same game as 1E.  It shares similarities in names of monsters and attributes, weapons etc. but its basically a game about building PCs and making them unique.   1E is about adventure first and foremost.  PC building is not really that big an issue as a 7th level fighter is basically the same as all other 7th level fighters (they typically pick the same armor and weapons more or less) and differ only in the personality the player might give it (CE, LG) shy, outgoing etc. 

The former makes it more difficult to "role play" as in emersion, because your constantly reading your sheet (unless your Merric B) and figuring your roles (calculating odds); while the later makes role play very easy, because your sheet is rarely looked at and the roles are controlled by the DM via tables. 

These are 2 different focuses, and 2 different reasons to play the game.  Also, 3E with its feats and skills comes  off as "push button" feel. Want to get past those orcs, press "tumble", want to get over that pit, bush "jump", want to get past that gaurd, press "fast talk"...you get the idea.  Thats the same system used in most video games (with buttons being replaced by feats and skills).  Its the same old stuff from years ago...nothing new.      And no I have zero interest in an edition war.  To each their own.  Alot of people who liked Magic would probably like 3E.  Its for a different market and kind of player then 1E...thats for sure.


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## Thurbane

I don't know about baby Jesus, but the resurrection of this thread sure makes me cry...


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## DeadlyUematsu

Thurbane, agreed. This thread is sigh-inducing.


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## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> As I said RC, I suck at making mechanics.  However, it's not a bad start and with a bit of spit and polish it works.




I was hoping that you'd have given me a better model to create some new hazards with, like Ogre and Ancient Green Dragon.


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## Sound of Azure

Thurbane said:
			
		

> I don't know about baby Jesus, but the resurrection of this thread sure makes me cry...




You said it....   All of these Edition Wars type threads are annoying. 





AND I just bumped this one.


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## Raven Crowking

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Unfortunately, with regards to tabletop RPG's, he's mostly wrong. If there's a beastie that doesn't fit in most games, it is badly desgined.





Badly designed to sell books, perhaps.  But this does not mean badly designed _for the game_.  Sells the most =/= the best, and of use to a select group =/= the worst.

RC


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## Odhanan

Sound of Azure said:
			
		

> You said it....   All of these Edition Wars type threads are annoying.
> 
> AND I just bumped this one.




Well, in defense of people who enjoy this thread and people who still post in it, myself included, one might argue that you're not forced to look at it, let alone post in it!


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## I'm A Banana

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Once again you slip into the fallacy of claiming that your personal preferences represent some sort of objective truth applicable to all gamers.




Sorry. Append "for my game" at the end of that. Because, really, that's all any of us have -- our games. And they are so very diverse that no generality can cover them.

But just because people don't like something doesn't mean they don't like something for a dang good reason. 

And if enough people don't like something, that reason is not an absolute mathematical truth, but it is a perspective truth. There's not a whole lot of difference between Pol Pot is evil" and "Pol Pot is evil according to my socially construed system of morality" other than that enough people share that system of morality to say "Pol Pot is evil" without anything other than agreement in most circles.

This should all be quite self-evident. I'm not dictating to you what your opinion should be, rather I'm describing an opposing viewpoint. Saying that viewpoint isn't universal doesn't make your opinion (or that pithy phrase of the person you're quoting) *right*. 

If collective player base of the game doesn't use the rust monster very often, then the rust monster is a poorly designed monster, even if some people use it a lot. If the collective human morality says that Pol Pot is evil, then for most intents and purposes, Pol Pot is evil, even if some people think he was a morally upstanding human being. 

This is all semantics. If a beastie doesn't fit into the majority of games, then the beastie is a poorly designed beastie for the majority of games, and thus should be changed until it does fit into the majority of games or kicked out of the game, because it's just eating up precious page space until then.

This is no different from saying: "If the beastie doesn't fit in the game, it's poorly designed."

There will always be people for whom generalities do not hold. The point is to hit in the middle of the bell curve as a game, because that will lead to a better game, with less wasted page space.



			
				RC said:
			
		

> Badly designed to sell books, perhaps. But this does not mean badly designed for the game. Sells the most =/= the best, and of use to a select group =/= the worst.




No, badly designed for the game. If the beastie doesn't fit in the game, it's badly designed for the game. Who determines if the beastie fits in the game? The players and DMs, who all have different games. Thus, the majority determines what is well-designed for the game.

After all, the goal of game design is to make people want to play the game. 

See, *OldGeezer* and *The Shaman* get it backwards, and in doing so, subtly insult those who form opinions different than theirs, implying that they just make a snap judgement without considering the point. Unfortunately, this doesn't hold true except in a narrow selection of circumstances. Most people don't snap to random judgements based on little or no information, and then seek justification for their quickly-formed opinions. Most people come to their conclusions after briefly judging the situation and coming to a conclusion. It's not that it's badly designed because we don't like it. We don't like it BECAUSE it is badly designed (for us) -- specifically, if it doesn't fit in our games, it's doing nothing for us except taking up space that could be better spent on something that does fit in our games. And if it's badly designed for most of the people who play the game, then it's badly designed for the game, which should want to get people to play it.

I mean, think of the monk. Arguably, the monk is poorly designed, because it doesn't fit in a large array of games that don't like to use Asian themes. It seems to happen, however, that the monk's tenuous-at-best connection to Asian flavor was good design, because a lot of people use the monk, some using Asian themes and some not. But if the connection was tighter, if it used highly loaded Asian symbology, it might be significantly more poorly designed, because it would exclude the monk from those games (in theory, the majority) which don't use a lot of Asian motifs.


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## Hussar

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Badly designed to sell books, perhaps.  But this does not mean badly designed _for the game_.  Sells the most =/= the best, and of use to a select group =/= the worst.
> 
> RC




I'll agree with the first bit there RC.  This is ground we've covered before, so I'll not do it again.  Suffice is to say that just because something is very popular doesn't make it well designed.  OTOH, it doesn't hurt.  

However, the second bit I do disagree with.  If something is of use to a small subset of the group and is ignored by the rest, then there is something wrong with that thing.  Assuming of course that the subset is significantly small.  If it's 49%, then I would say that it is fine.  However, if only 2% of a group finds a use for X, then it needs to be replaced by something that is more useful.  If something isn't being used, then there is likely a reason why.  Granted, the reason could be that it just hasn't been discovered by the larger group yet.  However, after a couple of decades, I think that if a larger use could have been discovered for the Rust Monster, we would have seen it.


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## Raven Crowking

Hussar, that is a common fallacy.  The merit of a thing is not determined based on popularity.


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## Flexor the Mighty!

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Hussar, that is a common fallacy.  The merit of a thing is not determined based on popularity.




True.  Otherwise teen pop would be objectively great music.  And that just can't be true.


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## Fifth Element

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Hussar, that is a common fallacy.  The merit of a thing is not determined based on popularity.




That depends on your definition of "merit". If the entire purpose of the thing was to be popular (ie, used by a lot of players), then popularity indicates its merit. It serves its purpose.

If by "merit" you mean some subjective judgement of quality based on some unstated criteria, than I can agree with you.


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## Hussar

I'm obviously with 5th Element here.  RC, you can talk about something having merit, but, if no one uses it, AND, after thousands of game hours (probably hundreds of game years actually), no one STILL uses it, whatever "it" is, has very little merit.

Yes, I'm sure that some people have used the rust monster and had a blast with it.  That doesn't make it a good monster.  That means that some people are very good at spinning straw into gold.  However, for a game element to be "good" should not require a large effort on the part of the DM in order to use it.  It should be pretty much self evident as to why it should be used.

A pit trap is good.  It serves the function for which it is in the game.  It can surprise the party, provide an interesting challenge, simply block off certain areas of an adventure, or provide entrance into others.  The secret door in the bottom of the pit in S1 is a good example.  But, in any case, a simple pit trap is a game element that can be used at almost any level, by any DM, in a multitude of situations.  And, additionally, it HAS been used in a multitude of situations.  It's merit is shown by the fact that it is utilized frequently.

A monster like a rust monster, which is almost never used (how many modules feature a rust monster that you can think of?  I can think of 2.) and has abilities which make it use problematic for some DM's (again, not all) is taking up space that could be given to something which can be used in a broader context.


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## Geron Raveneye

Hussar said:
			
		

> A monster like a rust monster, which is almost never used (how many modules feature a rust monster that you can think of?  I can think of 2.) and has abilities which make it use problematic for some DM's (again, not all) is taking up space that could be given to something which can be used in a broader context.




This, again, describes probably 1/3rd or more of published D&D monsters: almost never used, abilities that make it problematic to use for some (or many) DMs...you're not advocating we cut back the monster manuals, are you?  

By the way, I'm not sure inclusion into many official adventures and completely uncomplicated use are good determinants of a monster's usability or its "right to exist" as it is. Simply means there is something for every DM in D&D.

So stop bashing my beloved rust monster already, and go pester the...the...catoblepas, or something.


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## PapersAndPaychecks

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> That depends on your definition of "merit". If the entire purpose of the thing was to be popular (ie, used by a lot of players), then popularity indicates its merit. It serves its purpose.
> 
> If by "merit" you mean some subjective judgement of quality based on some unstated criteria, than I can agree with you.




For me and, I think, for most gamers, merit is an objective judgment of quality based on the admittedly unstated but I think fairly obvious criterion of whether my gaming group actually likes it.


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## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> I'm obviously with 5th Element here.  RC, you can talk about something having merit, but, if no one uses it, AND, after thousands of game hours (probably hundreds of game years actually), no one STILL uses it, whatever "it" is, has very little merit.




Sure....If you say "no one".    



> Yes, I'm sure that some people have used the rust monster and had a blast with it.  That doesn't make it a good monster.  That means that some people are very good at spinning straw into gold.




Or, conversely, that not everyone is equally good at recognizing all forms of gold.

Look, I didn't get that much use out of the WLD (which uses the rust monster, btw, in the "gotcha" way you think it designed to be used).  Price, page count, and use I got from it, I consider it to be a considerable net loss.  Love the map, though, the room conditions, and some of the encounters.  For my game, this wasn't a great product.  However, I wouldn't dare claim that it isn't a good product for _you_.

Because I dislike the current Paladin's Mount is no reason to suggest that it should be banned from all games everywhere.


RC


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## thedungeondelver

It is _utterly ridiculous_ to think that with four (FOUR...!) *MONSTER MANUAL*s in print now for the current edition that somehow, inclusion of the rust monster is taking away valuable  space.

There are, I'm sure, creations (or data) in any one of those books which is wholly redundant and could be trimmed long before removing such a classic *D&D* staple.


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## tx7321

The rust monster is a GREAT monster.  If its not used much by module writers or isn't popular with most who cares, all that should matter Hussar is that you and your group like it.  Don't fall for the mistake of going through life assigning value to things based on others opinions....trust your own intuition.  Usually if you like something, most other people will too.     Rust monsters, btw, were heavily used by DMs (for as long as I've played D&D).  They are a great kind of trap.  Open a door and out run 2 rust monsters destroying armor and weapons.   DD, the rust monster is not in the 3E MM...I never noticed that?


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## Raven Crowking

tx7321 said:
			
		

> The rust monster is a GREAT monster.  If its not used much by module writers or isn't popular with most who cares, all that should matter Hussar is that you and your group like it.  Don't fall for the mistake of going through life assigning value to things based on others opinions....trust your own intuition.  Usually if you like something, most other people will too.     Rust monsters, btw, were heavily used by DMs (for as long as I've played D&D).  They are a great kind of trap.  Open a door and out run 2 rust monsters destroying armor and weapons.   DD, the rust monster is not in the 3E MM...I never noticed that?





LOL.    

Hussar's instincts are that the rust monster should be a hazard at best....which your statements rather support.

And it is in the 3e & 3.5 MMs -- Hussar argued it was wasted space.

I disagree, and I trust _my_ instincts on that one.    

RC


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## Jedi_Solo

tx7321 said:
			
		

> Rust monsters, btw, were heavily used by DMs




By you or your DMs maybe, but not by any DMs I've played under.  The only times I've ever run into Rust Monsters have been through D&D video games.  Never through any table top game I have played.


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## Storm Raven

tx7321 said:
			
		

> The former makes it more difficult to "role play" as in emersion, because your constantly reading your sheet (unless your Merric B) and figuring your roles (calculating odds); while the later makes role play very easy, because your sheet is rarely looked at and the roles are controlled by the DM via tables.




I guess I've been playing 3e wrong for the last six (or so) years then. I don't remember "constantly reading my character sheet and figuring my roles [sic] (calculating odds). I remember playing a lot of D&D with piles of adventuring and roleplay mixed in with bad jokes, puns, and talking about OotS.



> _These are 2 different focuses, and 2 different reasons to play the game.  Also, 3E with its feats and skills comes  off as "push button" feel. Want to get past those orcs, press "tumble", want to get over that pit, bush "jump", want to get past that gaurd, press "fast talk"...you get the idea.  Thats the same system used in most video games (with buttons being replaced by feats and skills).  Its the same old stuff from years ago...nothing new.      And no I have zero interest in an edition war.  To each their own.  Alot of people who liked Magic would probably like 3E.  Its for a different market and kind of player then 1E...thats for sure.  _




Oh yes, the "3e as a video game" canard. I've played 3e since the day the 3e PHB came out, and I've never seen that style of play. Ever. But keep saying that's how the game works. It makes you look _so_ informed on the subject.


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## Storm Raven

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> There are dozens of threads on EN World wherein people have positted that the rules of 3e _by logical necessity_ give rise to magic shops, or magic street lighting, etc.




The rules of 1e and 2e, by logical necessity, gave rise to magic shops, magic street lighting, and so on. This was hand waved away by many people, but when you examined the system assumptions, the idea that such things would not arise in the most of the world environments assumed by those systems from published material put out by TSR becomes patently silly.



> _I don't believe that D&D ever had to be about buckets of +x items._




If you played the published 1e adventures as written, sure it was.


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## Jim Hague

tx7321 said:
			
		

> As others have stated, 3E D&D is no longer the same game as 1E.  It shares similarities in names of monsters and attributes, weapons etc. but its basically a game about building PCs and making them unique.   1E is about adventure first and foremost.  PC building is not really that big an issue as a 7th level fighter is basically the same as all other 7th level fighters (they typically pick the same armor and weapons more or less) and differ only in the personality the player might give it (CE, LG) shy, outgoing etc.




Can you actually offer real proof of your claim?  Because from where I'm sitting, you just said that playing cookie-cutter characters somehow _enhances_ roleplaying.  Homogeny doesn't equal variety.



> The former makes it more difficult to "role play" as in emersion, because your constantly reading your sheet (unless your Merric B) and figuring your roles (calculating odds); while the later makes role play very easy, because your sheet is rarely looked at and the roles are controlled by the DM via tables.




You mean like we had to do in previous editions, where it was a matter of iguirng out if it was save vs. wands, death or whatever?  Having to calculate THAC0?  Making up rules on the fly because there weren't any to cover a situation?  A lack of consistent rules means more time spent by the GM making up rules, or negotiating a fair, consistent resolution with the players.  Worse, it de-empowers the players, which can lead to a lot of dissatisfaction.  I know in previous editions I had to look at my character sheet more, because the rules made no damn sense.



> These are 2 different focuses, and 2 different reasons to play the game.  Also, 3E with its feats and skills comes  off as "push button" feel. Want to get past those orcs, press "tumble", want to get over that pit, bush "jump", want to get past that gaurd, press "fast talk"...you get the idea.  Thats the same system used in most video games (with buttons being replaced by feats and skills).  Its the same old stuff from years ago...nothing new.      And no I have zero interest in an edition war.  To each their own.  Alot of people who liked Magic would probably like 3E.  Its for a different market and kind of player then 1E...thats for sure.




Funny, for someone with no interest in it, you went out and started a thread on it, trotted out the tired old 'video game' argument, and are blithely ignoring that plenty of people are roleplaying just fine.  Don't believe me?  Go look in the Story Hour threads right here on ENWorld.  3.x doesn't seem to be interfering with the roleplay there one bit...


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## Piratecat

You know, I think we're done here.

Klunk.


----------

