Old School : Tucker's Kobolds and Trained Jellies

I don't think the creativity has been leeched out of D&D in any edition by the book. I think the presentation of the rules has tightened so much that we have lost those niggling little hanging chads of description. The 1E write up of fireball talked about igniting flammable objects and melting gold. The 3.x makes no mention and 4E reads very cut and dry. It is not against the rules but those little clues and breadcrumbs of 'looser' editing have an unintended consequence.

This is why you need to tell anecdotes of Ye Old Days, those dark times when we labored under the evil Lord THAC0 and were beset by the dastardly Head of Vecna and the otherworldly Dread Gazebo. Tucker's Kobolds chasing Named and Titled Heroes to the depths to fight demons and eldritch sorcery only to fear the return trip through the kobold gauntlet. Keep the creative alive. Have a disarm master with a wand of Unseen Servant who swipes the unattended disarmed weapon and runs away. Promote the different, the unusual and push the boundaries with your players and DMs.

Andor said:

I didn't even know there was a DMG 2 for 4e. At any rate I was not trying to start an edition war thread, merely communicate my feeling that over the years there has been a drift away from looking outside the character sheet for solutions to problems. It didn't start in 4e, and it won't end in 5e.

My question is: Should looking outside the character sheet for solutions be encouraged in 5e?

Click to expand...

No, but, with additional explanation.

See, in earlier editions, it was pretty easy to try stuff that wasn't on the character sheet, because the basic rules didn't cover a lot of pretty reasonable actions. How hard is it to push someone off a cliff in AD&D? Well, it depends on your DM. Since there aren't really any rules to cover that, you're into "out of the box thinking". However, in 4e, there are a bajillion ways to move someone off of a cliff. It's right there on pretty much everyone's character sheet.

So, does that mean it's no longer "creative"?

When a ruleset becomes more comprehensive, it should be harder to do stuff that's not covered by the rules. That's the point of being comprehensive. In order to achieve what you are looking for, we'd have to scale back the mechanics and not have resolution mechanics that cover so many different possibilities.

I'm a big fan of comprehensive rulesets. I have no problem with my smart tactics being covered by the rules rather than DM fiat.

Hussar said:

So, does that mean it's no longer "creative"?

When a ruleset becomes more comprehensive, it should be harder to do stuff that's not covered by the rules. That's the point of being comprehensive. In order to achieve what you are looking for, we'd have to scale back the mechanics and not have resolution mechanics that cover so many different possibilities.

I'm a big fan of comprehensive rulesets. I have no problem with my smart tactics being covered by the rules rather than DM fiat.

Click to expand...

But more comprehensive does not mean exhaustive, and many times comprehensive rules become a big hassle to combine to do a simple task. Grappling had comprehensive rule set in 3.x, it was more hassle than it was worth. 4E had detailed powers with comprehensive rules. How could a laser cleric disarm a maguffin from the BBEG to keep the ritual from being completed. The fighter and rogue both have encounter powers that disarm, but the cleric does not. Do you use the comprehensive skill challenge rules? Is it just a skill check? No rule set is exhaustive and comprehensive rulesets sometimes preclude players from attempting obvious tactics due to the complexity to resolve or even initiate the action.
A comprehensive ruleset is a noble goal but there is a price. The price is a rigidity of thinking, there is a separation of player thought and character thought. The player has to metagame to try and accomplish an intuitive action. The DM has to navigate the myriad of rules subsystems to figure out how to judge the outcome. It is rule by interpretation vs. fiat.
So, comprehensive rules are good. They still will not cover every situation and with a wide set of differing mechanics can limit play by complexity and creating boxed thinking.

I hope I am mistaken, but: Is the OP trying to diss non-old-school gameplay?

It is nothing but a myth that old school play has more verisimilitude than, say, 4E play. There is nothing plausible about a fireball burning every single treasure in a room. There is nothing plausible in being able to train a jelly monster. I do not consider this kind of challenge fun, either, but that may be just me.

Whoever wants to play Tomb of Horrors with it's antagonisms between the GM and the players and it's approach to adventure design can do that if they please. But, I'm really begging you, stop thinking that this is fun for everybody who has lived through the last 30 years of roleplaying design development. I actually have the opinion that this sort of play has stopped being fun for most players a long long time ago. And, in my point of view, correctly so.

There are a lot of people who like the fact that in 4E the players have more freedom to actually be heroes, that the GM is not their enemy and that they are not dependent on what only the GM thinks is plausible in a certain situation. And those people have just as many feelings of nostalgia thinking about moments in 4E, 3e and other non-old-school campaigns. And we are not less creative than old-school-players (what is this claim about?).

Hussar said:

No, but, with additional explanation.

I'm a big fan of comprehensive rulesets. I have no problem with my smart tactics being covered by the rules rather than DM fiat.

Click to expand...

My favorite magic item from 3e was the immovable rod. It's a magic item that, in any sort of direct sense, doesn't actually do anything. But my god does it have a lot of uses as an enabler of creative solutions.

And not to pick an edition war, I genuinely do not know, was it put into 4e? I do know it wasn't in the PHB. It wasn't in 1e or 2e either for that matter.

I do know that I want 5e to allow those sorts of magic items, the ones that sneaky bastard GMs and players love. Decanter of endless water, bag of tricks, rod of lordly might, the humble grease spell, most of these are notable not for their direct 'on sheet' power, but for the imaginative tricks they inspire.

grimslade said:

This is why you need to tell anecdotes of Ye Old Days, those dark times when we labored under the evil Lord THAC0 and were beset by the dastardly Head of Vecna and the otherworldly Dread Gazebo. Tucker's Kobolds chasing Named and Titled Heroes to the depths to fight demons and eldritch sorcery only to fear the return trip through the kobold gauntlet.

Click to expand...

YEAH BABY!!!

grimslade said:

Have a disarm master with a wand of Unseen Servant who swipes the unattended disarmed weapon and runs away.

Click to expand...

Git off my lawn.

Hussar said:

When a ruleset becomes more comprehensive, it should be harder to do stuff that's not covered by the rules. That's the point of being comprehensive. In order to achieve what you are looking for, we'd have to scale back the mechanics and not have resolution mechanics that cover so many different possibilities.

I'm a big fan of comprehensive rulesets. I have no problem with my smart tactics being covered by the rules rather than DM fiat.

Click to expand...

grimslade said:

But more comprehensive does not mean exhaustive, and many times comprehensive rules become a big hassle to combine to do a simple task. How could a laser cleric disarm a maguffin from the BBEG to keep the ritual from being completed. The fighter and rogue both have encounter powers that disarm, but the cleric does not. Do you use the comprehensive skill challenge rules? Is it just a skill check? No rule set is exhaustive and comprehensive rulesets sometimes preclude players from attempting obvious tactics due to the complexity to resolve or even initiate the action.
A comprehensive ruleset is a noble goal but there is a price. The price is a rigidity of thinking, there is a separation of player thought and character thought. The player has to metagame to try and accomplish an intuitive action. The DM has to navigate the myriad of rules subsystems to figure out how to judge the outcome. It is rule by interpretation vs. fiat.
So, comprehensive rules are good. They still will not cover every situation and with a wide set of differing mechanics can limit play by complexity and creating boxed thinking.

Click to expand...

Therin lies the problems with comprehensive rules. We can rule that the cleric can make some sort of ad-hoc roll to perform the disarm and move on.... but wait! The fighter and rogue have devoted precious character resources to being able to do that trick. If the cleric can "just do it" why have powers that do that?

IMHO comprehensive rules start off with the best of intentions but usually end up becoming a giant codex of exactly what you CAN'T do.

If everything is a power or feat or other ability that needs to be pre-chosen and designed for in your build, that makes taking action much more restrictive. If you relax those restrictions then what was the point of making all those choices in the first place?

TheFindus said:

I hope I am mistaken, but: Is the OP trying to diss non-old-school gameplay?

It is nothing but a myth that old school play has more verisimilitude than, say, 4E play. There is nothing plausible about a fireball burning every single treasure in a room. There is nothing plausible in being able to train a jelly monster. I do not consider this kind of challenge fun, either, but that may be just me.

Whoever wants to play Tomb of Horrors with it's antagonisms between the GM and the players and it's approach to adventure design can do that if they please. But, I'm really begging you, stop thinking that this is fun for everybody who has lived through the last 30 years of roleplaying design development. I actually have the opinion that this sort of play has stopped being fun for most players a long long time ago. And, in my point of view, correctly so.

There are a lot of people who like the fact that in 4E the players have more freedom to actually be heroes, that the GM is not their enemy and that they are not dependent on what only the GM thinks is plausible in a certain situation. And those people have just as many feelings of nostalgia thinking about moments in 4E, 3e and other non-old-school campaigns. And we are not less creative than old-school-players (what is this claim about?).

Click to expand...

New school play lacks creativity in the same way that old school play equals adversarial DMing.

Andor said:

My favorite magic item from 3e was the immovable rod. It's a magic item that, in any sort of direct sense, doesn't actually do anything. But my god does it have a lot of uses as an enabler of creative solutions.

And not to pick an edition war, I genuinely do not know, was it put into 4e? I do know it wasn't in the PHB. It wasn't in 1e or 2e either for that matter.

Click to expand...

This item was (as far as I know) introduced in the Basic D&D Companion rules as the rod of inertia.

TheFindus said:

I hope I am mistaken, but: Is the OP trying to diss non-old-school gameplay?

Click to expand...

Nope. As I said, this is not an edition wars thread.

WRT the Ochre jelly. No edition of D&D ever (including 3.x) included rules for training non-intelligent, hostile monsters.

The story, as I recall it, was written by E.G.Gygax in a Dragon Magazine. It described how the party saw the jelly lurking in a corridor intersection. It was large and formidable looking so they didn't want to fight it. Now jellies cannot see, in any edition. So the MU tossed a fireball at it from long range. Mindless or not fire hurts and the jelly retreated since could detect no source of the damage to attack.

The MU got a bright idea. The next day they came back and this time he rang the bell and tossed a fireball, jelly retreated. After a few more days of this and the sound of the bell alone was enough to drive the jelly away and the party was able to proceed down the corridor without a nasty fight and with the jelly functionally guarding their backs against wandering monsters.

This could be done, with the same rationale in any edition of D&D, if the GM liked the idea and agreed that you could use operant conditioning on something with the brains of a jelly fish. (Current research supports this notion in sea slugs, so I'd buy it.) Likewise it would NOT work in any edition of D&D if the GM did not buy the idea.

Allowing the PCs creative solution to work is not what I would consider Tomb of Horroresque hostile GM/PC interaction but YMMV.

No rules set is ever going to specify how every mindless creature must or must not react to every stimuli that PCs could inflict on it. No rules set is going to specifically cover every situation PCs can dream up. (Off the top of my head: Leaving an immovable rod hovering at knee height while being chased down a dark corridor, what happens?)

These days, and this is not a mechanical feature of any system, the thought seems to be that it is not "fair" or "balanced" to allow sneaky bastard PCs to bypass or neutralize a threat with unconventional tactics. Likewise it is "unfair" for GMs to present a situation with no obvious or simple solutions.

I'm trying to foster discussion of where along the spectrum of the simulationist 'expolitable realism' to the gamist 'balanced abstraction' the good people of Enworld would like to see 5e set it's goals.

grimslade said:

But more comprehensive does not mean exhaustive, and many times comprehensive rules become a big hassle to combine to do a simple task. Grappling had comprehensive rule set in 3.x, it was more hassle than it was worth. 4E had detailed powers with comprehensive rules. How could a laser cleric disarm a maguffin from the BBEG to keep the ritual from being completed. The fighter and rogue both have encounter powers that disarm, but the cleric does not. Do you use the comprehensive skill challenge rules? Is it just a skill check? No rule set is exhaustive and comprehensive rulesets sometimes preclude players from attempting obvious tactics due to the complexity to resolve or even initiate the action.
A comprehensive ruleset is a noble goal but there is a price. The price is a rigidity of thinking, there is a separation of player thought and character thought. The player has to metagame to try and accomplish an intuitive action. The DM has to navigate the myriad of rules subsystems to figure out how to judge the outcome. It is rule by interpretation vs. fiat.
So, comprehensive rules are good. They still will not cover every situation and with a wide set of differing mechanics can limit play by complexity and creating boxed thinking.

Click to expand...

SImply use existing rules (like attack bonuses and defenses) to allow the cleric a chance at making the disarm--it should not be as easy as a simple attack roll, nor should it inflict damage, too. The fighter and rogue powers get those benefits (the fighter also inflicts damage, the rogue power makes the disarm quite easy).

In other words, by defining the best versions of a given action with a power, the game provides excellent guidelines for non-optimal ways to accomplish that same action.

I agree that writing everything down can be a hindrance to thought and creativity--that was my major difficulty with 3e (there was a rule for just about everything). Still, bright guidelines provide guidance to those who aren't blinded by their brightness.

TheFindus said:

There are a lot of people who like the fact that in 4E the players have more freedom to actually be heroes, that the GM is not their enemy and that they are not dependent on what only the GM thinks is plausible in a certain situation. And those people have just as many feelings of nostalgia thinking about moments in 4E, 3e and other non-old-school campaigns. And we are not less creative than old-school-players (what is this claim about?).

Click to expand...

Just be aware, that in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. players had freedom to be heroes, and the DM was not their enemy.

4th didn't free everybody...any issues as listed above were (IMO) mainly inherent to the group dynamic.

Everything else in your post I agree with.