Has D&D become too...D&Dish?

ThirdWizard said:

Actually, I think Iron Heroes meshes with Monte's style. When I think of Monte, I think of high fantasy, amazing earth shattering events, and riding moons from orbit as they come crashing down onto the planet. Big Things. And Iron Heroes, while low in magic, keeps the Big Things genre alive and well within its pages.

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In truth, I've never actually even looked at Iron Heros, aside from the blurbs on store sites... My point was simply that when it came out, there was a lot of talk on just about all d&d message boards about how to do a "low magic" setting..

JohnSnow said:

I would also throw in the word "rapidly" before "every-increasing."

If by "low-magic," you mean no magic shops, characters defined by their personal abilities rather than their 30 piece magical accessory set, and worlds where the spell effects of low-level D&D spells aren't commonplace, then yeah, I guess maybe I do mean low-magic.

I guess if that's what people want out of D&D, it's not my game anymore. However, I am just asking. Am I that much in the minority?

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I know exactly what you mean.

In pre-3e D&D, one advanced levels 1-5 fairly rapidly, and then advancement slowed down. In 3.X D&D, advancement should continue at the same pace forever. As a result, in pre-3e D&D, characters lvl 6+ became exponentially more rare as level increased, but in 3.X one could reasonably assume to encounter 20th lvl + NPCs on a fairly regular basis. In pre-3e D&D, problems and monster-infested lairs existed because there were few characters out there who could take care of them...PCs were exceptional. In 3.X, one wonders why these things were not sorted out long ago.

Talk about magic items and spells....In every edition of D&D, there has been a lot of magic lying around, but in pre-3e D&D, the assumption was that the PCs would only recover a fraction of what was available to be found. Because character levels didn't rise like rockets, there was no inherent balance issues caused by playing a low-magic game. Now, mind you, in 3.X, you can play a low-magic game by using lower CR monsters, which will have the added benefit of slowing down level progression, so this isn't as hardwired as it seems at first blush. Yet, the XP value of any creature is based upon the assumption of a fairly rigorous arsenal.

Pre-3e D&D characters carry torches...they can blow out, get dropped, cause pockets of flammable gas to explode, and are generally messy. 3.X characters carry sunrods. There is no downside to them. And yet, again, it is easy to remove sunrods from the equipment lists.

The d20 system is a fairly robust engine. There are some who claim that it is "well balanced" -- but by "well balanced" they mean anything that tips it will make it fall over. It is this assumption, more than anything in the core rules, that ought to be challenged, IMHO. The RAW are easily modified into a low-magic game:

(1) Give less XP. I recommend 1/2 of what is suggested per RAW.

(2) Give less wealth and magic in treasure hoards.

(3) Use lower CR monsters to reflect the change in PC abilities. This has the added benefit of further slowing level progression.

(4) Don't include magic shops in your campaign.

That's it. No other changes are needed. The game doesn't tip over, and everything works. Even if the PCs begin with sunrods and scrolls in their starting equipment, game play will winnow these out, and they will begin to seem more like precious commodities, to be saved for when needed rather than wasted.

RC

JohnSnow said:

They may decide to take it up as a hobby because of that, but they're not going to "try it" based on "trying it." They're going to try it because something about it appeals to something they're interested in.

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I strongly suspect that they're going to try it because someone they know is interested.

Breaking new ground is fine...for existing players. But that's the point. The game seems to be, in my opinion, primarily targeting its existing market.

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To do anything else would be a disaster, from a business standpoint. Marketing to new people is, for a company of WotC's size, expensive, difficult, and high risk. It would not be enough to make a game for these people - they have to hear about and try the game. The existing gamers were (and still are) the best and most economical marketing tool for RPGs. So, you have to get them on board, and keep them there.

That being said, I think the "D&Disms" arguement is vastly overstated - most of the D&Disms are in addition to the standard fantasy tropes, rather than instead of them. The player can still do Robin Hood, King Arthur, and so on.

But, let us say that you build a game so flexible, it can handle all sorts of fantasy literature (I think that's a pipe dream, but let's suppose). Being able to model "the literature" is not going to help unless the new gamer finds a group of people who like the same "the literature". There are a great many sub-genres out there, you know.

From what I recall, the hottest-selling fantasy literature out there is urban fantasy - Laurell K. Hamilton is currently #6 on Amazon. Both Dragons and Dungeons are rather absent from the genre, so the brand is pretty useless to reach these fans.

JoeBlank said:

It recently hit me that I disagree with the idea that wizards can not cast healing spells.

I play D&D/C&C with my sons, ranging from age 4 to 8. At this point, I do not want to confuse them with the idea of mythical gods and the worship of these gods. So I think I am just doing away with the cleric class in our game. I'll let wizards and sorcerers pick from any spell list.

My kids don't have any idea how to min/max yet, and even if they did, balance be damned.

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Interesting...

In the campaign I'm running, there's only one God. (That the players know of) There are druids, but the "new" religion from the southern Empire has been pushing its way into the Kingdom. The peasents and commoners tend to still put more stock in the "old ways" of the Druids, but pay due respect to this new idea favored by the nobility.

I wanted to do something a bit different then the seemingly common pantheon of gods approach.

there are still areas in the campaign world that revere other gods or pantheons, the players just haven't gotten there...

JohnSnow said:

But basically, I'm looking at a huge surge in the popularity of fantasy and thinking the following:

"Harry Potter books are hugely successful. It's hard to imagine that of all those millions of HP reading kids, more of them don't become D&D players. I wonder why that is..."

I can brush off The Lord of the Rings movies. They're movies. I can brush off the popularity off fantasy video games (again, different, more passive level of involvement). But I can't look at the popularity of a series of novel like Harry Potter and not think that a substantial portion of them would be as eager to play in Harry Potter's world (or something similar) as I was to play in Middle-Earth (or something similar) after reading the Lord of the Rings. And yes, I admit that the Harry Potter novels have magic shops and might not be any more "low magic" than default D&D is.

The point is D&D isn't getting those people. They're looking at D&D and thinking "huh, I'll pass." Or their parents and the other adults in their lives are looking at D&D and NOT thinking "Hmm, he likes Harry Potter, maybe he'll like THIS." D&D seems too different.

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Keep in mind that to somebody who's real into fantasy, HP and D&D are "very different." But to somebody outside of the fantasy fandom, they're exactly the same. Exactly. The average suburban mom thinks of them both as being "that weird fantasy stuff with wizards and dragons and junk like that."

What keeps the HP fans who aren't fantasy fans generally from D&D is that D&D is not a "Harry Potter licensed product" (and never will be, if the rumors I've heard are true). That's why product licenses such as Star Trek and Lord of the Rings are such a big deal to game companies -- they will appeal to people who aren't gamers already, thus bringing in new customers as long as the license is healthy.

Once the license dies, a lot of them will not be gamers any more.

-The Gneech

The_Gneech said:

What keeps the HP fans who aren't fantasy fans generally from D&D is that D&D is not a "Harry Potter licensed product" (and never will be, if the rumors I've heard are true).

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I like hearing quotes like this... I usually mentally tack on "at the moment" to the "never will be" statements.

I'm not discounting what you're saying at all, but never will be in the business sense seems to be until current profit levels drop, or new management takes over and wants to make things "better..."

Couldnt you reverse the question and ask "Why Literature does not cleave closer to D&D?". The funny answer is of course you see that often times it is D&D that influences other genres. D&D has been a force in fantasy for 30 years. Parties, classes, levels, roles have been a stapple in D&D, are a stapple in computer games, are a stapple in much literature, and are a stapple in movies. As a child I remember reading a book called the Deeds of Paksanarion, or some such. Anyway the female lead, was on her way to becoming a Paladin.
Paladins in this book were clearly inspired by D&D Paladins, and this book was not a D&D published book, but an independent work of fiction. The tropes cut both ways.

Games will never exactly model fiction. Games need to have some degree of balance, games are also interactive, the players have to have some control over what they do. Rand al Thor does not have to be balanced relative to the rest of his group, Fritz Leiber (a huge supporter and influence on early D&D), can simply write in that the Grey Mouser had some magical training from a hedge wizard, and Deus Ex Machina like kill an experience Black Wizard, as long as the writting is good you are willing to buy it.

Fairness does not apply to books, it does apply to games. People for the most part will not play games they think are unfair.

Funny thing is, much of what you want can be done already. Think the old 1e/2e multiclassing rules better represent peoples talents...use the gestault rules.

Want a Wizard that can cast all types of spells, House rule that a Wizard can. AE has the Magister, which is basically just that, and it works fine.

Think the grapple rules are to complex, make it a straight strength check. The rules of the game are yours to play with.
Things like classes, levels, feats, and archetype roles have proven through sales to be probably the most popular model. I would say this is further confirmed when you look at the most succesful MMRPGs. World of Warcraft with its more standard D&D system is much more popular, and fun, than Star Wars Galaxies that was a "classless" system.

A'koss said:

For me, and I'm willing to bet for more than a few of you, that a lot of the perceived problems with D&D stem from the fact that it doesn't do a good job at mirroring the kind of fantasy (movies, literature) that we grew up with.

D&D only reflects itself. Eberron (and Ptolus by the sound of it too) are perfect examples of this - campaigns/cities built around the D&D ruleset which bear little resemblance to of any of the style of fantasy I recognize. The kind of popular fantasy that got me into playing the game in the first place (Conan, Red Sonja, Lanhkmar, Elric, LotR, King Arthur, Beowulf, The Greek Heroes, the Norse Heroes...).

Now when I was younger, I ran "games" and not really campaigns, so it didn't matter to me all that much. D&D players are relatively easy to find and it was, essentially, the only game in town. But when you start building your own homebrews and try to run games closer to the fantasy that got you playing in the first place, you find that the D&D ruleset doesn't do a great job of it. And the higher level you go, the greater departure from the style of anything you recognize.

I remember one of my players once commenting on how HL play in D&D beared no resemblance to what he had envisioned an "EPIC FANTASY BATTLE" to be like. And you know... he was right. D&D, whether you love it or not, is it's own unique brand of fantasy and is really only really suited to running "D&D" worlds.

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I mostly agree with this, although mirroring what others have said earlier, i don't think it's so hard to tweak the D&D game so that you CAN emulate the movies and stories that got you playing. I hate HL play for all the complexities and rampant power. I think the game really, really doesn't need characters to level higher than 12th. So, with this in mind, a DM just needs to mete out XP in such a way to accomodate that level arc.

I preordered the Ptlous book btw, not so much that i was enthralled by "magic shops on every corner" ( i don't like that actually) but b/c i was so impressed with Arcana Evolved, and the physical beauty of the Ptolus book. It's a one-of-a-kind tome for gamers.

And again, if i ever run Ptolus, as DM i will control the flow of magic items at exactly the rate i want the PC's to acquire them, which is slower than standard. And i'm sure Monte would be fine with that.

Erik Mona said:

The third edition experience progression is linear, rather than curved (as it had been before). These days, it ought to take just about as long to go from first to second level as it does from 18th to 19th, and that certainly was not the case in earlier editions.

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Now, if only the power scale was linear, then we would not have a problem. In previous editions, we had a slow level advancement and a exponential power growth. Now we have faster advancement and we still have that exponential growth.

Maybe this is what is affecting people. They just have no time to adjust to the power.

BelenUmeria said:

Now, if only the power scale was linear, then we would not have a problem. In previous editions, we had a slow level advancement and a exponential power growth. Now we have faster advancement and we still have that exponential growth.

Maybe this is what is affecting people. They just have no time to adjust to the power.

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You may well be correct.