B/X D&D on balance

pemerton · Apr 15, 2012

Andor said:
Out of curiosity, is that even possible? By any interpretation rich character development takes time. It's a matter of roleplaying, and roleplaying little things.

To the extent that it takes time, that's time in the real world, not necessarily a lot of time in the gameworld.

And both of these seem orthogonal to the rate of XP acquisition.

"Little things" does seem more relevant, but I'm not sure that little things are especially important to characterisation. In a fantasy RPG, I think character can be built around big things.

The PCs in my games often have character, but this doesn't generally emerge out of campfire conversation, haggling, or tourism. Discussions with friends and enemies are important, but these can (and do) happen in the dramatic moments in which XP are earned.

Andor said:
I suppose you could hand out another level after every good dinner party, but I'm not sure what purpose it would serve, or even what it would mean.

Well, if the dinner party is a prelude to Orcus turning up, the purpose of the level would be to make the evening with Orcus mechanically playable.

More generally, in D&D increases in level have generally increased the political/cosmological/territorial scope of play, and this can be as relevant to a high as a low characterisation game.

pemerton · Apr 15, 2012

GnomeWorks said:
Are there... not just one, but two people in this thread actually arguing that 4e is Sim in any way, shape, or form? That 4e is incapable of Gamist play?

I don't think it's especially good Sim, because I think played as Sim the fiction is too easily dropped out ("it plays like a board game").

I used to think it couldn't do Gamism, for the reasons P!NBACK and I gave, but Balesir persuaded me otherwise.

I personally use it to run a light, somewhat gonzo narrativist game, and not much drifitng is required for this. I think 4e actually makes a pretty good vehicle for this, provided that (i) you're looking to deal with the pretty standard thematic material that fantasy is good for (it won't give you P!NBACK's "Boardwalk Empire" game!) and are happy using fantasy tropes.

Viking Bastard · Apr 15, 2012

Andor said:
And yes, that is one justified shift in terminology, especially considering that those terms were all being used, in different ways before the GNS concepts were evolved.

Yes. GNS annoys me to no end, precisely because of this. I don't know how old GNS is, but I don't remember it being around when I left the hobby early in 3.5's lifespan. When I returned, people were now using these terms ("gamism" and "simulationism", at least) to mean something completely different than they did when I left, resulting in a lot of very confusing discussions.

From what I gather, I'm not alone in this.

S'mon · Apr 16, 2012

My understanding of Moldvay default play is that the GM creates a dungeon suitable for an 'adventure', a single session of play, so they typically have ca 10-20 rooms. The PCs start at the entrance to the dungeon, explore it, fight monsters & get treasure, then return to the surface.

Larger dungeons can be used for multiple adventures, but it's not designed around sandbox play until the PCs reach Expert (Cook/Marsh) level. 1e AD&D seems similar, you start out with 'Ruined Monastery' type dungeons, then as the PCs go up in level the DM starts detailing the surrounding wilderness.

pemerton · Apr 16, 2012

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], what you say about B/X is reinforced by the comment in Expert that, on wilderness adventures, players will have to manage their PCs' healing (which implies that in Basic play it is all taken care of by the rather nebulous downtime between adventures).

I find this idea - that the fundamental nature of the game changes as you keep playing - a bit weird. You start with this game you enjoy, and then suddenly it turns into this other thing that (at least conceivably) isn't as much fun.

S'mon · Apr 16, 2012

pemerton said:
[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], what you say about B/X is reinforced by the comment in Expert that, on wilderness adventures, players will have to manage their PCs' healing (which implies that in Basic play it is all taken care of by the rather nebulous downtime between adventures).

I find this idea - that the fundamental nature of the game changes as you keep playing - a bit weird. You start with this game you enjoy, and then suddenly it turns into this other thing that (at least conceivably) isn't as much fun.

I think "the fundamental nature of the game changes as you keep playing" is very much the heart of BECMI D&D, and of the truncated BX D&D likewise. It's less obvious, but still immanent, in AD&D; the DMG advice goes from "first dungeon adventure" through the wilderness sandbox stuff to the territory development and exploring of other planes, including Boot Hill and Gamma World. 3e was the first edition of D&D not to more or less explicitly support this paradigm.

Personally I love "the fundamental nature of the game changes as you keep playing", but I've noticed that some younger players tend to look askance at the idea, and seem confused by the notion. But I do have one young player who's told me he plans to have his PC Esme overthrow a local bandit king and install herself as monarch, a concept which warms the cockles of my old(ish) heart.

pemerton · Apr 16, 2012

I don't object to the fictional scope of the game changing - I think that's fairly core to D&D.

It's more the procedures and expectations of play changing that I find weird.

So when the game becomes about overthrowing a local king and installing a PC as monarch, I think I prefer that the manner of play (what resources the players deploy to achieve this, for instance, and the action resolution mechanics) remain the same.

S'mon · Apr 17, 2012

pemerton said:
I don't object to the fictional scope of the game changing - I think that's fairly core to D&D.

It's more the procedures and expectations of play changing that I find weird.

I know what you mean. I agree to some extent - eg I don't much like complex 'dominion' games that are basically completely different games to D&D, that you have to start playing when you reach a certain level and found a domain, thieves' guild etc. I like the Mentzer Companion Set domain & warfare rules as they support rather than replace regular play.

I also agree that (to a lesser degree) it can be odd to be playing "This is the dungeon of the week, you're at the entrance, what now?" Basic D&D, then at 4th level transition to "You're in town, what now?" sandbox Expert D&D.

In practice, some GMs start the game sandboxy from level 1, others stick with dungeon of the week for the whole campaign (Adventure Path play does that, with the AP linking the dungeons). But I think that the fragility of low level PCs in pre-4e D&D mitigates against status quo sandbox play; tailored Moldvay style newbie dungeons give PCs a chance to level up and get tough enough to engage the actual sandbox wilderness from around 4th level.

In my current campaigns I've taken a variety of approaches.

My online AD&D Yggsburgh game is pure sandbox from 1st level, but I gave PCs max hp and I down-powered the status quo encounters; they are written assuming PCs start at 4th and play the sandbox to ca 9th. I adapted it to more like 1st-6th, though at 1st many fights were still knife-edge survival. As an online & city-focused game it's also heavy on the roleplay/character interaction/talky stuff.

Conversely, my tabletop Pathfinder Beginner Box game is set around Yggsburgh too, but is very much designed as Moldvay-style tailored dungeon-of-the-week. The PBB seems to take its cue from the Moldvay approach so this is the default mode presented there anyway, though it could be used for low-powered sandboxing. I do it this way because it's an open access game designed to accommodate whoever turns up, so I need a framing mechanism (all PCs are guild sellswords for hire) and I aim for a complete adventure of ca 10-12 encounters in 1 4 hour session.

My 4e campaigns have been somewhere in between, something like dungeon of the week but with much more player direction than in the PBB game, and more of a dramatic/story element emergent from the gameplay.

S'mon · Apr 18, 2012

I was just looking at my 1e AD&D DMG today. Gygax says that campaigns begin with base town + starter dungeon, then when the players are ready the GM develops the surrounding wilderness & places it in a larger setting, either created by the GM or purchased (eg World of Greyhawk). The PCs can then explore the wilderness and meet random wilderness encounters.

There seems to be a bit of a gap here in that the sample 'Ruined Monastery' starter dungeon is at most Moldvay/Mentzer Basic 3 levels of play style, whereas the DMG wilderness encounter tables with their 30-300 Monster Manual orc type encounters seem more for high level PCs around 7th+. "The First Dungeon Adventure" section in 1e DMG is clearly much like a Moldvay/Mentzer dungeon (& precedes them, of course, possibly inspiring them), whereas OD&D is focused on the Underworld - the vast 'megadungeon' suitable for campaign play.

And of course I suspect a lot of 1e DMs focused on running published adventures, of which there were a lot for the 3rd-6th and 5th-8th range.

Balesir · Apr 18, 2012

Yep - I remember the "issues" with wilderness encounters. Pretty soon we had the concepts of "levels" of wilderness, similar to "dungeon levels", where the further you went from "civilisation" the "bigger" the monsters you were likely to find.