I guess I really do prefer simplicity

[The Ghost]

Originally Posted by Janx

With no extra rules, the fighter is BORING. This is why folks move on to play Wizards. They get more rules and more OPTIONS.

Why does the fighter need to be made exciting for you when it is already exciting for me?

Personally, I like having the OPTION of playing a very simple character sometimes and a very complex character at other times.

[Wik]

I for one love BECMI and would probably love 0E too. While we can say all we want about reduced options for fighters, I never really found that to be the case in actual play - mostly because combats were shorter (we could go through a dozen in a six hour session and still spend only half the time in combat). Because maybe half the time of the game was spent in combat (I'd actually say it's closer to one quarter, from personal experience in BECMI), the rest of the time, the fighter was doing his own little things - using his strength to lift up doors, and exploring the place. While he was no different mechanically from any other fighter, that didn't bug anyone. After all, it applied to every class in the game.

Each thief had the same thieving skills. The wizards had the same spells (since they'd share spellbooks). The clerics were the only ones with any diversity - they'd each have a few cure spells, and then a few other spells they'd co-ordinate.

The fighter's appeal was for the people that wanted to "hit stuff, and take hits". To be the tough guy. And in non-combat situations, the looser nature of the rules meant that fighters weren't really getting gimped.

[Ariosto]

Real play to prep time should be closer to 1:1 IMO. Any less than that, and you are cheating your players. 2:1 certainly wouldn't hurt ...

This depends on just what you're about. A "story plotting" entertainment tends to be most intensive, because "scenes" are meant to have but momentary use. With an original-D&D-style underworld and wilderness, reuse means that prep time pays off longer.

If you've been running a somewhat old-style campaign for a while, then you may have so much already worked out that a given session might not require any special preparation.

Going less gradually, one might work up too much material and "choke" on it or "weigh down" creative play. It is often better, in my experience, to improvise filling in a sketched outline than to look up detailed notes. The best flow comes from comfortable familiarity with the imagined environment, so that one can pay full attention to the players' activities.

[Ariosto]

Janx, not everyone happens to share your fixation on "feats". Can you see how it goes with spending more time and energy on the resolution of a fight? That can be a circular process: taking longer demands more interesting number-crunching, which in turn requires more time, so fights get boring, so it takes more rules to "inject excitement" ...

Old D&D depends primarily on real-world tactics, which may not interest you but suits other folks well enough. In addition, you can try any fancy stratagem you like, without needing a "feat"; you're not limited to options someone else has defined.

To some people, the sub-game of "builds" and the sub-game of "combat moves" are just obstacles on the way to the game of adventure. To them, character is not about how many mechanical bonus you've written down on a piece of paper but about what you do in play.

More time and energy spent on accounting means less spent on what's really worth talking about, the stuff of tales to tell.

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Regarding prep time; I used to run 1E and 2E almost entirely ad lib. Almost everything invented whole cloth on the fly. I did that a lot because I loved running the game but hated the tedium of prep. I did spend time on it occasionally when I wanted to be sure I had something substantial to fill a specific need for an upcoming session, but otherwise I’d often fill game time with random monster encounters just so I wouldn’t have to “work” at DMing.

For 3E I began to rely more frequently on modules which I’d adapt on the fly. 3E was the system being used when I ran my most successful campaign ever, and the first that I’d started with a definitively anticipated end. (I had no idea WHAT the end would be but by the time PC’s were 20th level I had no intention of carrying that campaign a moment further.)

A system that supports that kind of approach to DMing will naturally find a certain amount of favor with me.

Originally Posted by ExploderWizard

To that I say that it only gets as old and stale as the actual adventures that are run. Oodles of fiddly mechanical differences can likewise entertain and keep things fresh for a certain duration. Once the new shinies are known and used you are back to the same level of boredom as before yet saddled with complexity that no longer provides anything but extra work.

It’s the old Mr. Spock quote: “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.” In days of yore we wanted all those options and abilities, but after getting them many of us found after a time that we were satisfied with our boring, staid, unchanging, limiting class abilities.

Originally Posted by tyrlaan

Therein lies the dilemma I struggle with. How much simplicity vs. how much diversity do you want?

Exactly so.

Originally Posted by Bullgrit

I've watched people create D&D3 characters, and what I see is a lot of time and effort put into picking the exact perfect combination of feats, skills, spells, and equipment. You don't *have* to put that much time and effort into those choices

True – but 3E was designed around the concept of "System Mastery". It was decided by its creators that this is where the fun was for the players and therefore you ostensibly should be using it that way – endless fiddling with picky details. It was fun for a time but the new wears off after a while.

Recently I was speaking with the two players I’m most likely to start a new game with (when I can finally pry them away from the damned computer MMORPG’s) about what system I might use and surprisingly they stated that they’d prefer 2E over 3E. One in particular stated that all the options were interesting but when it came down to it they didn’t want to face fussing over things. 2E, by their recollection, relieved them of the burden of fiddling with the mechanical details of a characters ongoing improvement.

Originally Posted by Obryn

The thing with calling them optional is that every single 2e setting, supplement, and splat assumed you were using them.

Actually, I believe that’s not the case. Oly one or two 2E products were produced with that assumption but not a single setting or module was written detailing such optional abilities for NPC's or monsters. That is, they might have listed new NWP's or kits for those who might want to include them, but none of the data throughout would factor those NWP's and kits into things. The practicality however was that they WERE extensively used and therein an additional annoyance – nothing WAS ever statted with the optional stuff. You had to add/modify it all yourself.

Originally Posted by Obryn

While it's true they're marked as optional in the core rules, the moment you move outside the PHB/DMG, they become basically essential. IMO, they're "faux-optional"

I agree, just for a different reason as noted. Also, once you start to use those options IME it’s danged hard to voluntarily drop them until you really, REALLY get sick of dealing with them.

Originally Posted by Bullgrit

Really, is this really that complicated or time consuming?

No it isn’t. But, if you can explain to me then why it DOES take so long despite the fact that it SHOULDN’T then I’ll have learned something useful.

[Tequila Sunrise]

Originally Posted by Man in the Funny Hat

The simplicity of OD&D? Do I really want things that [forgive the pun] Basic? Even 1E or 2E, which I have always professed a preference for over OD&D and all other editions may be too complex for me. Why? Well it started with comments I was reading about software - software for character creation/tracking. I sort of decided that it's come to be an abomination. I started a list and came up with 5 elements that I personally want to see out of whatever version of D&D I play.
[list][*]It should never need, nor even instill any desire to have software to update a character sheet to calculate modifiers, or track anything else about a PC. For that matter no software EVER should be seen as needed or desired to REDUCE THE BURDEN of running/playing the game. The game should ALWAYS be simple enough to run/play without such added claptrap.[*]A character sheet should ideally fit on one side of one sheet of paper, 2 sheets at most excepting perhaps an extensive listing of spells. [Kind of goes along with the previous and following points.]

I sympathize with you here. Most of my group uses the 4e CB and they talk about how great it is, but I don't see it. Maybe it's because I can whip up a character in 20-30 minutes at most, but I'm seeing this software more as a crutch than anything truly useful.* Also, when an official printed CS has to use tiny itty bitty fonts to fit everything on two sides, I think there are just one or two options too many.

I can't say I share you feelings about simplicity though. Well, let me put that differently: I like simple, elegant games, and I hate arbitrary complexity, but I want options. So far 4e has proven the most elegant and option-rich, though I think it could do without feats, and it has the least amount of arbitrary complexity. Admittedly I haven't played every edition; I started with 2e which was a nightmare on so many levels, followed with 3e which was fun but had waaay too much arbitrary BS and now I play 4e. I've played one session of OD&D which was fun as a one-shot but I don't think it could hold my attention for anything resembling a campaign. Way too limited for my taste.

*Someone once told me that Socrates spoke out the same way against the written word: he thought that passing information along via writing would make us stupid and lazy. It probably did, but I don't think any of us can argue that we're not happier as a result of certain technologies.

[Ariosto]

I've played one session of OD&D which was fun as a one-shot but I don't think it could hold my attention for anything resembling a campaign. Way too limited for my taste.

Your taste is as valid for you as mine is for me, but from my perspective the valuation is bizarre. The only "limitation" is a shortage of limits in the form of formal, preset, rigid rules. The variety of possibilities in characters, environments and events is thereby so much greater.

Again, it is perfectly valid so to prefer the manipulation of abstract stuff of which 3e and 4e require so much. If you really think that the rest of the game is somehow more limited in old-style D&D, then you have it basically backwards.

[BryonD]

Originally Posted by Ariosto

Your taste is as valid for you as mine is for me, but from my perspective the valuation is bizarre. The only "limitation" is a shortage of limits in the form of formal, preset, rigid rules. The variety of possibilities in characters, environments and events is thereby so much greater.

Again, it is perfectly valid so to prefer the manipulation of abstract stuff of which 3e and 4e require so much. If you really think that the rest of the game is somehow more limited in old-style D&D, then you have it basically backwards.

But by that reasoning you should throw away your OD&D books, because compared to my completely freeform systemless game you've added nothing but limitations.

I agree completely that no system "limits" the content that exists within a game. But that is not the only form of limitation. Unlimited variability in content can still be limited in how that content is translated into a mechanical simulation.

I also agree that each taste is as valid as the next. There is nothing remotely implicitly superior about the 3E/4E versions compared to OD&D.

But declaring it backwards to use the term "limiting" requires an inaccurately forced context on the word.

[Ariosto]

But by that reasoning you should throw away your OD&D books, because compared to my completely freeform systemless game you've added nothing but limitations.

Wrong!

You might as well say that by your reasoning you should always go for the most procedurally complicated human-moderated game available.

Firstly, you have arbitrarily and wrongly assumed as a premise a hierarchy of values that is not mine. There is no "that reasoning" in place from which your "should" follows.

Secondly, either your "free form" game defines things enough to distinguish them from other things, or it in fact has NO things. The OD&D books are indeed "system-less" relative to darned near everything that's followed, but even some systems are quite wide open.

The essential distinction is the degree to which 3e and 4e are prescriptive rather than descriptive, definitive endpoints rather than preliminary examples. They are "must" and "must not" rather than "could, perhaps".

That is in the nature of creating a complex game of abstract mathematical manipulations. It is not in the nature of creating a complex game of exploring an imaginary world.

I just hope that the quite different phenomena have not been confused by someone who might prefer the latter without the former. "I hate arbitrary complexity, but I want options" could serve as a statement of why I much prefer "0e" to 4e.

[BryonD]

Originally Posted by Ariosto

Wrong!

The conclusion is wrong, but only because the it was based on your faulty reasoning.

You might as well say that by your reasoning you should always go for the most procedurally complicated human-moderated game available.

Really? What part of my reasoning remotely suggests this?

Firstly, you have arbitrarily and wrongly assumed as a premise a hierarchy of values that is not mine. There is no "that reasoning" in place from which your "should" follows.

Yes there was. You said "The variety of possibilities in characters, environments and events is thereby so much greater". This is a reasoning that demands "limitations" be limited in scope to the "possibilities in characters, environments and events".

The essential distinction is the degree to which 3e and 4e are prescriptive rather than descriptive, definitive endpoints rather than preliminary examples. They are "must" and "must not" rather than "could, perhaps".

I reject this claim as absurd. If you played it that way, then, with all due respect, "there's your problem".

I certainly find it ironic that you started by claiming differing preferences were valid. But you have rapidly moved through falsely describing "limitations" as constraining content, to directly accusing the alternative as being "prescriptive". That is quite a way to come in such short order.

[ExploderWizard]

Originally Posted by Janx

I'm going to have to disagree here. Firstly, I'm not talking about hyper-specialization as in being the best trippy chain fighter.

The problem with the super simplistic fighter is that he only has 2 tricks. Swing sword or shoot bow. And other than variance in the die type, nothing differentiates him from Mr. Swing Axe or Throw Axe. Not really anyway. If my PC died, yours could pick up my stuff and do the exact same thing.

With no extra rules, the figher is BORING. This is why folks move on to play Wizards. They get more rules and more OPTIONS.

This is why each subsequent edition has added more stuff to the fighter. To add some variance between REALLY different things my fighter does, compared to yours.

Because of the way the basic fighter worked, if I missed a session, you could play my fighter exactly the same way you played yours. And it wouldn't matter.

With the extra options like feats, it encourages playing my fighter differently than yours, to take advantage of the feats I have, that yours doesn't.

Basically, the rules gives options to define a PC, and then sets a play pattern for that PC.

I'd hate to call it a "restriction" but part of the challenge of roleplaying is to define a role which has limits to how it acts (choosing a Good alignment versus evil) and then solving the game's problems with those choices made.

To sum up, I like having enough complexity to differentiate my fighter from yours, and not just through the funny accent I use and the stupid weapon choice I chose during equipment buying.

If the part of the game you enjoy most is the combat boardgame aspect I completely understand and appreciate this view. I just decided that for me, systems other than D&D scatch that itch better. I can really get into a detailed crunchy combat treatment but the abstraction of D&D doesn't provide the simulation I like so I prefer to avoid the complication too.

[Herremann the Wise]

My goodness we gamers are a diverse bunch.

For myself, I love detail and diversity and complexity and mechanics that elegantly represent these. Things that maintain an internal logic of suitable mechanics so that they react appropriately when pushed or prodded in one way or another by the DM and the players are what I like. I suppose I like a detailed structure of rules that I can freely bounce between in game. I like things to be consistent and make sense. As such, a simplified or overly streamlined game is most likely my least favoured to play - to each their own as it were and I suppose everyone has an edition of D&D that suits them best, which is kind of cool too.

My prep time most likely exceeds my game time most of the time. I love preparing detailed character sheets - I have seven characters in my Age of Worms campaign and each character sheet is between 15 and 22 pages in length (lots of campaign material etc. in them). I love making up spell and item cards and all the trappings that go with such play. I have a huge alphabetical file box that I take to games with pages and pages of details. So as such, your hell is my heaven so to speak.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

[rounser]

A few observations:

• The AD&D/BECMI Fighter is the "gambler's class", in that no other class rolls the d20 or the damage die more. This can retain interest, especially when combined with collecting magic items to power that up. Raid Encyclopedia Magica for powerups, or include Weapon Mastery or AD&D's specialisations.
  
• I believe that recent editions of the game have moved the focus from the adventure, worldbuilding and campaign arcs to powering up PCs, to the detriment of the game as a whole. When combat plays fast, you can get through more adventure. When the focus of the game becomes tactical combat, D&D is inevitably trumped by computers. It boggles me a bit that 4E didn't play to the PnP's strengths, rather than try and take on the computers on their own turf.
  
• The payoff of feats and special maneuvers is having to use miniatures and battlemaps, which, when combined with the inevitable delays required for tactical decision making turns D&D into a chess combat game, rather than a campaign game. There simply isn't enough time to do a campaign of the scope that BECMI or AD&D can manage in 4E, IMO.
  
• There are obvious commercial reasons to force miniatures and a desire for further splat into the game: Keep the suckers buying. I'm sure WOTC could release something simple and self-contained that encouraged players to build their own material, but that's obviously not in the company's best interests. The splat model will inevitably create edition burnout, so I don't see the point in following them along for the ride. By the time you "have all you need", you won't want it, because the result will be an unbalanced labyrinthine mess.

[scourger]

Originally Posted by Wombat

Dear Man in the Funny Hat,

I would strongly suggest you look into the game Savage Worlds:

The Many Worlds of Pinnacle Entertainment Group

It is a simple system that can be reorganized for a variety of settings (simply look at the site to the possibilities there ... and there are 3rd party publishers as well). It is quickly explainable and rather flexible. This might be a game to your tastes.

Yep. I thought of Savage Worlds immediately upon reading the original post. It really captures all the things you're looking for. To put it in the terms of one of my gaming buddies, it has the fine granularity of options that players want but the coarse granularity that game masters want. In other words, it's complicated enough to be fun to play but still simple enough to be able to run easily. You should give it a look.

As for me, I'm using D&D minis the next time I run that game. That is about as complicated as I want it these days. The players can use the core 3.x, but I'm just making it easier on myself as a DM.

[Ariosto]

Originally Posted by BryonD

Yes there was. You said "The variety of possibilities in characters, environments and events is thereby so much greater". This is a reasoning that demands "limitations" be limited in scope to the "possibilities in characters, environments and events".

There is (as I explicitly noted) no such demand -- which would in any case not be the premise you claim "there was" for your further conclusion. That a game with fewer game-mechanical bits to manipulate would be more "limited" in that regard is obvious (and acknowledged as "the only 'limitation'".)

I happen to enjoy mechanically complex game rules systems as well. It is trivially true that constraining possibilities is not merely a consequence but the purpose of such a construct. Self-consistency is of its essence.

My hierarchy of values is not for "the least number of limitations" (which of course would be none at all) as an absolute good above all. That does not at all follow as a value judgment -- an opinion -- from the quite independent observation that the original D&D concept is not only "not more" limiting than WotC's but less limiting.

Consider: You are free to spend as much time and energy as you like in poring over 3e or 4e books to "build" your character for my game. No such labor, though, shall be incumbent on me (an OD&D DM) or the other players.

You are also free to set aside the books and come play your character with our less rigid rules and the "limited" resources of imagination.

Those resources are always the ultimate limit. There are penultimate, practical limits because we have finite resources of time and energy for wonkery with complicated models and artificial balances. There are further voluntary limits involved in agreeing to be bound by rules.

Would it "provide more options" to require that every vehicle in a game must be defined with the full design sequence of Fire, Fusion and Steel or GURPS Vehicles? Would it facilitate as much diversity as a less preparation-intensive, text-bound requirement?

[Korgoth]

Originally Posted by Grimstaff

Take a look at Swords & Wizardry.

Yes.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by jdrakeh

I'd agree with this, if not for the inclusion of 3x, in which I was never able to create a character in anything less than half an hour (and that was pushing things).

I was able to create 3e characters in about 15 minutes provided I used only the Player's Handbook. Now when I had the Complete series (among others) to use , I was looking at an hour, unless I was doing a very basic cookie cutter build I had found on the net.

[Lanefan]

A few thoughts here:

SIMPLIFYING:
1e can be easily simplified to some extent without really losing anything:
- remove weapon speed
- remove weapon type vs. armour type
- go to a straight d6 initiative, no modifiers (or, extremely rare)
- back off on enforcing encumbrance unless someone's abusing it
- open up what races can be what classes, and remove level limits; to counter, back off on some of the racial advantages and play up cultural differences instead

CHARACTER SHEETS:
Every character I have ever rolled up (in 1e *or* 3e) has started with a 1-page sheet, numbers etc. on the front and possessions on the back. On average, they seem to gain about 1 more page per adventure completed: an experience point tracking sheet, a finances tracking sheet, notes on adventures hooks, outdated sheets when it's rewritten so I can read through the scribbles and spilled tea, and so on.

AND THIS:

Originally Posted by Wik

I for one love BECMI and would probably love 0E too. While we can say all we want about reduced options for fighters, I never really found that to be the case in actual play - mostly because combats were shorter (we could go through a dozen in a six hour session and still spend only half the time in combat). Because maybe half the time of the game was spent in combat (I'd actually say it's closer to one quarter, from personal experience in BECMI), the rest of the time, the fighter was doing his own little things - using his strength to lift up doors, and exploring the place. While he was no different mechanically from any other fighter, that didn't bug anyone. After all, it applied to every class in the game.

Each thief had the same thieving skills. The wizards had the same spells (since they'd share spellbooks). The clerics were the only ones with any diversity - they'd each have a few cure spells, and then a few other spells they'd co-ordinate.

The fighter's appeal was for the people that wanted to "hit stuff, and take hits". To be the tough guy. And in non-combat situations, the looser nature of the rules meant that fighters weren't really getting gimped.

Wik, you have *got* to sit in on a Victoria Rules game sometime. Hell, you're even in the right city!

And you're bang on about the classes, particularly the Fighter - the mechanical similarities matter not once personality enters the scene...

Lan-"Fighter for 25 years and counting"-efan

[Raven Crowking]

Originally Posted by BryonD

But by that reasoning you should throw away your OD&D books, because compared to my completely freeform systemless game you've added nothing but limitations.

FWIW, this is a classic example of a straw man.



RC

[Bullgrit]

But, if you can explain to me then why it DOES take so long despite the fact that it SHOULDN’T then I’ll have learned something useful.

Reasons why character generation in D&D3 takes longer for some people:

1. They use more than the core rules. That some groups make this choice because they want more options, and then complain that choosing from those options takes longer, is insanity to me.

2. Some people are paralyzed by choices. Have them roll randomly, in order, and they can go. Give them the option to roll and then place the scores where they want, and they slow up under the decision. Give them the option to point buy their scores, and they seize up from indecision.

3. Some people like tweeking their PC down to the most minute detail. Their taking an hour to do this annoys those who are finished in 15 minutes.


Take a group of people into an ice cream store where the choices are one scoop of vanilla or chocolate, and you can all be eating your treats in a few minutes.

Take that same group of people into an ice cream store where the choices are one-three scoops of 32 flavors, and suddenly you will find it takes an hour to finally taste your treat.

But for some reason, no one will complain that the bigger store is bad.


Back to D&D. Being as the only real differences between AD&D character creation and D&D3 character creation are skills and feats, if it takes someone just 10 minutes to create an AD&D character, but 60 minutes to create a D&D3 character, that says that someone takes 50 minutes to pick out 1-3 feats (from a limited list for 1st level characters) and 2-8 skills (from a limited list).

It's not that the creation itself is time consuming, it's that some people just can't make up their frickin' minds.

Bullgrit