Old School : Tucker's Kobolds and Trained Jellies

[Scribble]

I'm not sure I understand you - what I'm getting is "How the game is designed doesn't affect how players make decisions", but I don't think that's your point. Would you mind going into more detail? Or maybe you have questions for me?

Not entirely- yeah obviously if there are more options in a game people have more tactics they can use, so yes, the way a game is designed can alter the way people think about making choices, but it's not in the way people seem to have been presenting in this thread.

I think people watch (or run) a 4e game, for instance, and see people scanning their sheets looking for a power to use, and then for some reason think something along the lines of:

"If only this game didn't have all these powers, that player would be thinking about what his character could actually do in that situation and try to do that instead of what the best power is!"

That's where I see the false assumption. In reality these same people when presented with a game that gives them far fewer powers and abilities written on the sheet, don't interact with the game any differently. Instead they scan the much smaller list of powers and do something from that.

The converse is true as well. The same people who in games with less described powers are taking actions based on "what they perceive their character would do in that situation" are still doing that in games with more described powers.

If this isn't what you're saying, then I apologize I misunderstood... But that's what I'm taking away from your (and others) previous comments.

This is why I think it's a player thing and not a rules thing. Just like there are different personality types, there are different play style types, and those play styles will shine through no matter what the rules are.

(That to ME is also one of the reasons I think tabletop RPGs are SO powerful. They have a human DM that can account for the different play styles and essentially re-calibrate everything so they all work together.)

Do you feel there IS some way that would cause people to change their play style?

 

[LostSoul]

Not entirely- yeah obviously if there are more options in a game people have more tactics they can use, so yes, the way a game is designed can alter the way people think about making choices, but it's not in the way people seem to have been presenting in this thread.

I think people watch (or run) a 4e game, for instance, and see people scanning their sheets looking for a power to use, and then for some reason think something along the lines of:

"If only this game didn't have all these powers, that player would be thinking about what his character could actually do in that situation and try to do that instead of what the best power is!"

That's where I see the false assumption. In reality these same people when presented with a game that gives them far fewer powers and abilities written on the sheet, don't interact with the game any differently. Instead they scan the much smaller list of powers and do something from that.

The converse is true as well. The same people who in games with less described powers are taking actions based on "what they perceive their character would do in that situation" are still doing that in games with more described powers.

If this isn't what you're saying, then I apologize I misunderstood... But that's what I'm taking away from your (and others) previous comments.

That wasn't what I was trying to get at, but no need to apologize. I would expect players to look over their character sheets to figure out what to do; otherwise, what are character sheets for? Basically I agree with what you're saying.

Let me try to rephrase my point and let's see if it makes any sense.

I think there is a difference when you're looking at your character sheet and you see something like "Spinning Sweep: Encounter (Martial, Weapon); Standard Action; Melee weapon; Target one creature; Attack Str vs. AC, Hit: 1[W] + Str and you knock the target prone" vs. "When you can spin beneath your opponent's guard with a long, powerful cut, you can sweep your leg through his an instant later to knock him head over heels."

The first one doesn't rely on details of the fiction to inform its use.

While both are tied to elements of the rules (assuming the latter includes a rule where some kind of fictional trigger allows its use) as well as what's on the character sheet, the former doesn't care if the target has a guard up that you can spin beneath, or if the target has legs you can sweep through.

4E doesn't ask you to make your decisions based on that kind of information. Those specific details don't inform action resolution. (Not that any version of D&D ever asked this, or was explicit about it, though 3E made an attempt through a plethora of modifiers.) You can describe your PC's action in that way, but the game doesn't care if you do or not; the description doesn't affect the game's economy.

 

[JonWake]

Yeah, I don't remember getting that specific in any version of D&D. I think combat had a different role in earlier editions of D&D, which is why it was so abstract, but it's been too long since I've played those older versions to do anything but guess.

True that. In older versions of D&D, fighting wasn't something you spent three hours out of every six hour session on, in my experience.
(I suspect groups that treated combat as the de facto reason for playing had a very different experience, though, and were probably far more interested in the newer editions.)

I remember thinking, as I played with my group of grognardian old-school gamers while I was in college, that if you wanted to watch the group come together and play like a professional football team, give them a monster. I could almost see them flipping through the monster manuals in their heads. If you want them to completely lose their minds and end up trying to kill each other within fifteen minutes, give them a set of identical doors at the end of a hallway.

That is to say, exploration of the environment was far, far more important than combat. Combat was just the timer that made the exploration more dramatic.

 

[Hussar]

When the details of the fictional space no longer have any bearing on the resolution of actions that involve interacting with it then yes it HAS become irrelevant.



DM: "This room was once a barracks, you see smashed bunk beds and footlockers strewn about the room, in the......"

Player: " Yeah yeah, we search everything and take 20. What do we find?"
/snip

Y'know, I was thinking about this today and something hit me. If this situation ever actually comes up during the session, you have much, much larger issues than mechanics. I mean, if the players aren't even letting you finish the room descriptions, that's a big, giant honking neon sign with bright letters telling you that they are not interested in what you are interested in.

At this point, you basically have two choices:

1) Change your playstyle to match the players

2) Get new players which match your playstyle (because, by this point, it's pretty unlikely they're going to compromise)

You don't have the following choice:

3) Futz with the mechanics in an attempt to force the players to follow a specific playstyle that they obviously aren't interested in.

There's a reason we have resolution mechanics for this kind of stuff. If you want to play D&D without them, you certainly can - there's two or three entire edition's worth of material just waiting for you. However, trying to force people into a playstyle with mechanics is not going to give you good results.

 

[Zustiur]

It is a question of plausibility. If you look at a character sheet and see a martial daily power you have to find a plausible way to explain why this martial power can only be used once. Why not 2, 3 many times.
And I think that some people have a hard time with that and therefore do not like 4E.

Pretty much yes. It certainly bothers me more than Vancian magic. Afterall, with Vancian magic, we are talking about magic. It's not a real world thing, therefore the concept that a spell would be wiped from your memory the moment you cast it is just fine. That never bothered me in the slightest.
The idea that I can only throw dirt in someone's eyes once per day... That bothers me.

I'm already on record as not liking 4E. I'm not going to edition bash here, but let's see if I can actually identify some of the reasons I dislike it.

* First and foremost I think exception based ruling doesn't sit well with me. I'm happier having rules to cover common stuff, and guidelines for adjudicating exceptional stuff. I don't need every little thing having it's own rule, and I explicitly hate the idea that I can't do something because there isn't a rule allowing it.

* Powers for non spellcasters don't sit well with me. While I get the concept of 'this will only work in your favour occasionally', I'm happier with being able to try it multiple times, but having a lower success chance.

* Exception based rules + powers... Now that really bothers me.
Ranger: "I hastily nock two arrows instead of one and fire them together".
DM: "You can't."
Ranger: "Why not?"
DM: "You don't have Twin Strike"

* Targets: X, Y or Z. Oh god how I hate this line. I have one of those DMs. The ones who say the rope bridge doesn't get burnt because burning hands targets creatures. If you never had your group start arguing about those rules, you're a much luckier man than I am. This same DM has ruled on multiple occasions that you cannot use an attack power unless there is a creature to attack. e.g. I want to use an attack power that includes a teleport to simply teleport without attacking something. "Nope, can't be done. You need to target a creature"
To borrow the phrase of the moment, "Explicit targeting rules need to die in a fire!"

* Targets: Enemies. Why is it that virtually every player AOE power targets creatures, but monster powers target enemies? I'm not even certain that that's a true rule, but it's how we play. Drives me up the freaking wall.
DM: "The hobgoblin sorcerer casts fireball on the paladin, hitting everyone in the party."
Me: "And hitting 3 hobgoblin soldiers"
DM: "Nope, hits enemies".
W. T. F.

I find that all of the above limit creativity. Yes, page 42 exists. But it's one page. Against hundreds of pages that basically say the opposite of page 42.

Before I continue, Yes I realize this is a play group/DM specific issue. However, it's an issue that is encouraged by the way the rules are written. My DM is a 'rules as written' kind of guy.

* Slimes can be knocked prone. Excuse me? I know this got errata'd, but it should have needed to be. For players like me, the rules should make sense in the real world first. Balance be damned.

* Rules instead of narrative. In 4E, more than any other edition I've played, I feel like I'm playing a boardgame. The rules are so... prevalent, that I spend most of the game being aware of them, instead of letting them wash over me. I want 5E to have clear concise rules. But I want those rules not to jar me out of the story back into boardgame mentality.

* Square circles. Squares instead of feet. Diagonals = 1. Nice and easy to use in game. Makes no damn sense in the real world. Again, boardgamey.


Sorry, I got carried away with my bashing there. My point is that there are reasons that people (like me) feel that 4E stifles creativity. Rules that trump common sense. Rules that don't gel with reality. Rules that make the game feel gamey instead of being about storytelling.

I think people who argue that magic users are two powerful are often in groups that don't apply consequences to spell use. Having fireballs not destroy the paper McGuffin makes fireballs much more powerful. How powerful is a fireball if you're too afraid to use it?


I feel that DMs of earlier editions used to present the players with situations. The players then had to work out a solution to the situation. Recent editions seem to be focused to presenting the players with solutions from which to choose.
I don't want to play 'choose your own adventure' where all the options are laid out in advance. I want to play DND, where I have to figure out what the options are for myself.

Perhaps if page 42 was in the player's handbook instead of the DMG...



A lot of this discussion has been about whether or not having lots of powers available stifles creativity.
Theoretically, it doesn't. The option to be creative has not been removed. Page 42 even exists to facilitate it.
The problem is that we're dealing with people here. The less options a player has, the more likely they are to look 'outside of the box' for options which are not on the character sheet. It's a psychological thing. I'm a victim of it as much as anyone else. If I don't have a power that knocks a target prone, I don't think of it as an option. There are no rules for tripping an opponent that aren't part of a power. Therefore I cannot do it. This is how it 'stifles' my creativity. Under 3E, everyone could trip, but it had AoO as a penalty, unless you spent a feat on it. Under 2E... I don't recall trip existing at all, but on the other hand, there also wasn't specific powers that enabled it for some characters and not for others.

I can't speak for OE, 1E etc. I never got to play them.

 

[Mattachine]

I'm already on record as not liking 4E. I'm not going to edition bash here, but let's see if I can actually identify some of the reasons I dislike it.

* First and foremost I think exception based ruling doesn't sit well with me. I'm happier having rules to cover common stuff, and guidelines for adjudicating exceptional stuff. I don't need every little thing having it's own rule, and I explicitly hate the idea that I can't do something because there isn't a rule allowing it.

* Powers for non spellcasters don't sit well with me. While I get the concept of 'this will only work in your favour occasionally', I'm happier with being able to try it multiple times, but having a lower success chance.

* Exception based rules + powers... Now that really bothers me.
Ranger: "I hastily nock two arrows instead of one and fire them together".
DM: "You can't."
Ranger: "Why not?"
DM: "You don't have Twin Strike"

* Targets: X, Y or Z. Oh god how I hate this line. I have one of those DMs. The ones who say the rope bridge doesn't get burnt because burning hands targets creatures. If you never had your group start arguing about those rules, you're a much luckier man than I am. This same DM has ruled on multiple occasions that you cannot use an attack power unless there is a creature to attack. e.g. I want to use an attack power that includes a teleport to simply teleport without attacking something. "Nope, can't be done. You need to target a creature"
To borrow the phrase of the moment, "Explicit targeting rules need to die in a fire!"

* Targets: Enemies. Why is it that virtually every player AOE power targets creatures, but monster powers target enemies? I'm not even certain that that's a true rule, but it's how we play. Drives me up the freaking wall.
DM: "The hobgoblin sorcerer casts fireball on the paladin, hitting everyone in the party."
Me: "And hitting 3 hobgoblin soldiers"
DM: "Nope, hits enemies".
W. T. F.

I find that all of the above limit creativity. Yes, page 42 exists. But it's one page. Against hundreds of pages that basically say the opposite of page 42.

Before I continue, Yes I realize this is a play group/DM specific issue. However, it's an issue that is encouraged by the way the rules are written. My DM is a 'rules as written' kind of guy.

* Slimes can be knocked prone. Excuse me? I know this got errata'd, but it should have needed to be. For players like me, the rules should make sense in the real world first. Balance be damned.

* Rules instead of narrative. In 4E, more than any other edition I've played, I feel like I'm playing a boardgame. The rules are so... prevalent, that I spend most of the game being aware of them, instead of letting them wash over me. I want 5E to have clear concise rules. But I want those rules not to jar me out of the story back into boardgame mentality.

* Square circles. Squares instead of feet. Diagonals = 1. Nice and easy to use in game. Makes no damn sense in the real world. Again, boardgamey.


Sorry, I got carried away with my bashing there. My point is that there are reasons that people (like me) feel that 4E stifles creativity. Rules that trump common sense. Rules that don't gel with reality. Rules that make the game feel gamey instead of being about storytelling.

I think people who argue that magic users are two powerful are often in groups that don't apply consequences to spell use. Having fireballs not destroy the paper McGuffin makes fireballs much more powerful. How powerful is a fireball if you're too afraid to use it?


I feel that DMs of earlier editions used to present the players with situations. The players then had to work out a solution to the situation. Recent editions seem to be focused to presenting the players with solutions from which to choose.
I don't want to play 'choose your own adventure' where all the options are laid out in advance. I want to play DND, where I have to figure out what the options are for myself.

Sounds like you have a pedantic, rules-lawyer DM. That's not my preferred play style.

By the way, Exception-Based Rules do not mean there is a rule for everything. Actually, it means that there is a general mechanic to cover all situations, except for the ones that have a different rule. Having a power that does something doesn't mean there is a rule saying that is the only way it can be done. There are, for instance, lots of powers that allow two attacks with a bow.

I agree that much of 4e's problems came from bad presentation. The DMG2 and the Essentials lines were better written and had better advice and guidelines for DMs . . . but too little too late.


Like you said, no edition of D&D removed creativity. Unfortunately, for the rules-lawyers, pedantic players, and certain others, rules-heavy editions (AD&D, 3e, and 4e) provided a framework they loved, loved to debate, loved to argue about being right, and so forth. I try to avoid those players and DMs, regardless of edition.

 

[Zustiur]

Sounds like you have a pedantic, rules-lawyer DM. That's not my preferred play style.

Sadly yes. I stick with that group because the role play outside of combat is so good.

By the way, Exception-Based Rules do not mean there is a rule for everything. Actually, it means that there is a general mechanic to cover all situations, except for the ones that have a different rule.

Thanks for the clarification.
I think it's the number of exceptions in 4E that spoil it really. Looking at the combat chapter on its own - no problem. Throw in thousands of different powers... yuck. I'm finding it hard to really explain what it is about 4E that makes me hate it so much. There are parts that I like, and parts that I don't. I could really enjoy it as a purely tactical game with no real emphasis on role play. But as a mix between roleplay and tactics, it just doesn't sit well with me. Again, that's partly a group thing. If I had a group of tacticians, I could really get into the combat. Instead I have a group of role players, stuck in an edition which falls too easily into combat grind.

Bringing this back on topic though; I could totally enjoy encountering something like Tucker's kobolds in 4E. It's part of what I feel is lacking. There's too much emphasis on balance for my liking. I want to run level 10 characters against level 1 monsters sometimes, not against level 10 kobolds... Scaling monsters is a great mechanic, but it's overused to the point where every combat feels the same.

Playstyle is the issue here. To be truly successful in its goal, 5E needs to be able to handle Tucker's kobolds. Now, any DM can put this kind of element into any edition. The question is how easy is it? Well there's no difficulty at all, except that of perception. There is nothing to stop you throwing level 1 monsters at level 10 characters in 4E, except that the game is designed to avoid those situations. Monster scaling, the encounter building guidelines, the overall emphasis on balance. All of these things lead DMs to think 'Oh, I can't do that, it wouldn't be balanced'.

I think ultimately this old school vs new school thing is about the different types of challenge you can encounter. New school (in my opinion...) is about balance above everything else. You can't throw a dragon at level 1 characters unless they have a reasonable chance of killing it. You can't throw lesser creatures at level 10s unless there's a suitable challenge level to the combat. Older editions put so much less emphasis on this. My memory of 2E is hazy, but I don't recall any guidelines whatsoever which pushed you to use monsters of a certain difficulty level.

I'm sitting here with my books in arms reach, so let's have a look.
2E DMG has 10 pages on Encounters. *flick flick flick* Okay, the closest thing I found to Challenge Rating (CR) or Encounter Level (EL) is the guideline for building encounter tables where it links monster experience values to dungeon levels. That's it. That's the closest thing 2E DMG has to balance guidelines.
Now let's look at 4E DMG: 3 chapters comprising of 53 pages. The first chapter is more about how to run a combat than anything else. The second is about building combat encounters. An entire chapter dedicated to how encounters should be built. 4 entire pages of this chapter are guidelines for how to set the EL and ensure that everything provides just the right amount of challenge.

Old DMs will take this or leave it, as suits their personal play style. Newer DMs will follow it unquestioningly (yes, there's always exceptions). Everyone is going to have their own definition of old school and new school, but for me, that's it right there. Old school focussed more on characters being in a dangerous world. How they interacted with that world determined if they lived or they died. New school ensures that that world always provides them with a suitable chance of living, death is rarely an option.

This actually brings up one of the things that stunned me most about 4E. When I started, about a third of the way through our first adventure, my character got killed. "Fair enough", I thought. "Time to start building a new one". Less than half an hour later my character has been raised from the dead because the level 1 party already had enough gold to pay for that.

Compare that with the tales I hear of 1E and BECMI. 'Don't bother naming your character until you reach at least level 4'.

Old school is unforgiving. New school is more forgiving. Sometimes old school went too far. Sometimes new school goes too far.

I'd like to see 5E put emphasis on something a bit more in the middle.

 

[Incenjucar]

Tucker's Kobolds would just be minions of the appropriate level in 4E with traps of the appropriate complexity. Not that big a deal.

And based on page count, 2E was more about magic items and spells than adventures.

The 4E DMG focuses on the scene because the scene means a lot more than in previous games, where an encounter with Orc and Pie would be -normal- instead of unusually boring.

 

[JonWake]

So over on the rpg.net boards, there was someone asking for help with rebuilding their rogue. This notion is entirely absent in old school gaming. If you didn't like your character, it was probably more to do with not connecting with them personally. Or, like me, you made a gag character and didn't expect them to survive. (Ebenezer Sasquatch, 4th level Ranger with a Scroll of Pornography and an abiding hatred of things on his land, you will not be missed.)

Shortly after, a cacophony of players were aghast that he only had a +1 weapon at 7th level, because that's in CLEAR violation of the expected power level, and he should have a long talk with that mean old DM.

But no, there's no such thing as player entitlement.

 

[Incenjucar]

To-hit bonus is a big deal in 4E. It's like a pre-4E wizard avoiding armor. You can NOT do it, but it's silly.

If you want to call 2E players who don't dress their wizards up in leather entitled, be my guest.