i was reading a post over on GROGNARDIA i believe, and came across this (cut and pasted from a larger post):
"The crux of it, though, is this: challenge the player, not the character's stats. That's probably the single most important difference between old school and contemporary roleplaying games. I think that it's at the root of why most old schoolers have an instinctive hatred of skill systems in RPGs. Skill systems often imply not just what your character can do but also what he knows. That creates both a powerful separation between player and character knowledge but also creates the expectation that a character's knowledge ought to be able to give the player the solutions needed to solve in-game puzzles, tricks, traps, etc."
that one section "challenge the player, not the character's stats" sums it up for me in terms of what i like about older style play over the new systems which, with a rule for everything, makes it harder to do so.
that's also my answer to the thread which asks what is missing in 4e, or the thread asking if someone would play 4e if necro games managed to bring a 1e feel to it. if someone could make 4e into a game where player skill counted for far far more than character stats and abilities, then yes, i would play and like 4e.
as it is now, my group plays a heavily houseruled version of 3.0, not even 3.5, which makes 3.0 more like 1e.
anyhow my 2 cents. i have never seen a statement which so clearly articulated my position on the differences between the editions that the one i quoted above. i thought it might make for interesting discussion.
this blog posting lead to an interesting discussion within my gaming group, and i thought it might do so here as well. please no edition flame wars.
the esact link to the blog/article is here:
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/04/gygaxian.html
"The crux of it, though, is this: challenge the player, not the character's stats. That's probably the single most important difference between old school and contemporary roleplaying games. I think that it's at the root of why most old schoolers have an instinctive hatred of skill systems in RPGs. Skill systems often imply not just what your character can do but also what he knows. That creates both a powerful separation between player and character knowledge but also creates the expectation that a character's knowledge ought to be able to give the player the solutions needed to solve in-game puzzles, tricks, traps, etc."
that one section "challenge the player, not the character's stats" sums it up for me in terms of what i like about older style play over the new systems which, with a rule for everything, makes it harder to do so.
that's also my answer to the thread which asks what is missing in 4e, or the thread asking if someone would play 4e if necro games managed to bring a 1e feel to it. if someone could make 4e into a game where player skill counted for far far more than character stats and abilities, then yes, i would play and like 4e.
as it is now, my group plays a heavily houseruled version of 3.0, not even 3.5, which makes 3.0 more like 1e.
anyhow my 2 cents. i have never seen a statement which so clearly articulated my position on the differences between the editions that the one i quoted above. i thought it might make for interesting discussion.
this blog posting lead to an interesting discussion within my gaming group, and i thought it might do so here as well. please no edition flame wars.
the esact link to the blog/article is here:
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/04/gygaxian.html
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