Rockin' it old school - give DIY a try!

outsider · Aug 22, 2007

Character creation will never go away. It's a bigger part of D&D now than it's ever been, and is likely to become even bigger. You correctly identified it as the thing that seperates D&D from other games. It's mindboggling to me how many people say there should be less options for creating your character, and even go so far as to suggest that premade characters is the way you want to bring people into the game. Building a character is one of the most important(and fun) parts of D&D, and it should be very well supported with a wide variety of options.

Meeki · Aug 22, 2007

Many, many players have their own house rules, classes, spells, etc. but don't forget that D&D has ALOT more casual and younger players than it did in the old (A)D&D days, at least from what I can tell. Combined that with the necessity to know the rules pretty much in and out to design anything in 3.x and it becomes quite intimidating.

People now spend more time doing "necessary" things in their life and less time on hobbies. Travel time has grown steadily over the past 3 decades for almost everyone and so has time spent working, to a lesser extent. Of course this is a choice of lifestyle in many cases, moving further out increases travel time and is more expensive therefore you have to either work more or cut back on spending, yadda yadda.

Li Shenron · Aug 23, 2007

AGFlynn said:
Another day, another edition.
Having started with this game in 1975, not long after a group of friends discovered Chainmail in the back of a comic book or something, I'm a true old fogey. I've even gotten over the shock of 2e.
I think much of the discussion around 4e has been very interesting, and even being a grumpy ol' b*****d, I'm willing to give it a look.
But here's what I want: a good, solid core rules set and nothing more. Back in the day, when a Coke was 5 cents and a bag of chips a quarter, we used to take the old 1e rules and then make our own content. Lots of content. And it was fun and creative to boot.
Why don't we all do more of that? Why do so many rely on WotC or third-party-created content? It seems a shame that the game has drifted towards encouraging the purchase of pre-designed add-on material and constant rules updates.
Maybe our lives are busier, maybe there's a lot of great stuff out there. Granted, I have a crapload of WotC and other third-party materials (egad, I've even written for and been paid for game design for the latter), but I still enjoy the creative aspects of the game. Designing wicked dungeons, cooking up great characters with cool backstories.
I think there's now too much focus on process and not enough on playing.
I think WotC and others are doing a great job creating top-notch product, but it has steered me away from creating my own content because, hell, it's just easier.
So.
My suggestion to those who are miffed that WotC is engineering a cash grab by pumping out product after product and new editions at the drop of a hat is: vote with your feet and do it yourself. If you like 4e, buy the core books and build the rest yourself. Really, it's fun. 4e will probably be a great product because there are smart people behind it, with experience.
In my humble opinion, the game has gotten away from the gamers. Take it back! No offence to WotC, but we don't need their product to have a good time. Don't waste time whining about no d6 fireballs -- you're not a slave, pick and choose what you like and leave the rest.
This game is what we make it. No?

I think you say very fair things

Actually in the 3.0 DMG there were even suggestions from Monte Cook about creating your own stuff. Prestige classes (and variant classes) were introduced as something that could be created by creative gamers, given appropriate guidelines (although these were vague in the book).

At the end it's just easier to buy a book that does the job for you, and makes you feel "safe". But I wish that gamers were more confident!! Most gamers say that they want the crunch from the books, but instead they don't want fluff because "we can come up with fluff anyway".

But then when actually gaming I think that it is EASY to create new character material that is balanced enough!
OTOH I find that it more difficult to create good fluff, and I have seen DMs say "we can come up with fluff anyway" and then come up with the same old fluff all the time...

Of course books will still be useful because they'll have crunch ideas that you haven't thought about

Less easy to create entire variant rules (like substituting AC with DR or vancian spellcasting with a mana system), so books can always be a resort for the most difficult design stuff.

In conclusion, whether you design your own crunch of fluff, doing something yourself it's an important aspect of playing a fantasy game IMHO.

Rockin' it old school - give DIY a try!

outsider

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