[EDITION WARZ] Selling Out D&D's Soul?

Lanefan said:

Hussar, the jungle module you were trying to remember is probably Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.

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I was thinking Dwellers of the Forbidden City, module I1.

BTW, Lanefan, great post!

RC

Raven Crowking said:

IME and IMHO, "straight" 3e is blander than straight 1e or RC D&D.

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In the post from which I've snipped this comment, I agree with everything you said, except this comment. At least, I'd want to qualify it. I'd agree that 3e is a bland reading experience, compared with 1e/RC D&D. In play, I would be able to make no such distinction.

Ourph said:

Go back and review ERB's A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, Thuvia Maid of Mars... for examples of large bodies of henchmen and followers being led by the various fictional heroes of those authors.

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ERB (as noted) I know very well. Although there are odd exceptions in those books where the hero finally gets to command a small (or larger) band, the primary weight of the adventures is solo or with one or two companions.

Ditto most of Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser.

Henchmen/Mercenaries are not alien to those sources, but as to being necessary and used all the time, that seems alien.

Cheers!

Raven Crowking said:

What you suggest here, btw, would support the claim that 1e is superior to 3e because, although no longer supported, it still has a large fan base. Like the crocodile, it survives. That some other animal later evolved has no bearing on it.

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Oh! Oh! Or like the coelacanth . . . once thought extinct, but still alive and well.

[I don't believe in evolution, but thought the analogy apt given the context.]

FireLance said:

You know what I say to that:

It's Still D&D To Me
(with apologies to Billy Joel)​

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Thurbane said:

*snip*

To be honest, I never allowed Dwarves to be Wizards in any 1E game I ran. I was quite happy with the flavour that EGG and co had created. But if I had felt as strongly about it as you did, I would have either A. modded the system to suit or B. looked for an RPG that was more generic. Noy trying to be a wiseguy here, just being honest.

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Actually, I never had dwarves as wizards either. Why? Because the rules said I couldn't. That's the point I've been trying to make all along. Sure, the rules say I can change things, but, then, you have to have an idea of what to change something TO. I never had dwarven wizards because it never occured to me, beyond a "Hmmm" sense that dwarves should be able to be wizards.

Let's not forget that it was many years of 1e before the first creature had a character class. Strahd and Ravenloft was pretty late in the 1e era and featured the very first creature with a class. Before that, it never occured to me to do that.

[/quote]
I think that's a little unfair. Basically every RPG, except things like GURPS, has some sort of inbuilt flavour. You basically have to decide if you want to stick with that flavour, or modify it to taste. Yes, 3E has far less of that particular flavour inbuilt, but it's still there. 3E is still quite Greyhawk oriented.[/QUOTE]

To answer your later question, no I don't feel any shackling by the inclusion of Greyhawk gods in 3e because to me, these are just names. I don't know Greyhawk all that well, other than what we saw in modules. Pelor, St. Cuthbert and the rest could be named any other name and it would not make a whit of difference to me. The flavour isn't there at all and I feel perfectly free to swap in any other god, or even no god at all.

Hussar said:

Actually, I never had dwarves as wizards either. Why? Because the rules said I couldn't. That's the point I've been trying to make all along. Sure, the rules say I can change things, but, then, you have to have an idea of what to change something TO. I never had dwarven wizards because it never occured to me, beyond a "Hmmm" sense that dwarves should be able to be wizards.

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So, are you saying that you felt shackled because you were unable to do something that didn't occur to you to do, or that you felt shackled because you thought the rules said you couldn't indulge your "Hmmmm" sense despite the fact that the rules encouraged you to do so?

I mean, either you wanted to make dwarven wizards, or you didn't.

If you didn't, then you can't fairly blame the rules. If you did, then you can't fairly blame the rules for somehow preventing you from wanting to do so.

If you did want to make dwarven wizards, you either did or you didn't. If you did, again you can't fairly blame the rules.

If you didn't, you either didn't because you thought you couldn't or you didn't despite the fact that you knew you could. If you didn't despite the fact that you knew you could, you can't fairly blame the rules. If instead you thought you couldn't, an examination of the rules shows that they encouraged you to make changes. Again, this is not something that can be fairly laid on the rules.

What you seem to want us to believe is that (1) you wanted to make dwarven wizards, (2) the rules prevented you from doing so because they were THE RULES, and (3) although the rules encouraged you to make changes to create the game you want, you it never occurred to you that you could make dwarven wizards.



Meanwhile, if I were to tell you that I thought I couldn't tell the players "No dwarven wizards" in 3e, because the rules say there are dwarven wizards, and good gosh golly I'd like to change that but I can't -- my hands are tied and shackled by the rules both telling me that there can be dwarven wizards and that I can change that -- would you conclude that the fault was with the rule system....or with me?


RC

MerricB said:

ERB (as noted) I know very well. Although there are odd exceptions in those books where the hero finally gets to command a small (or larger) band, the primary weight of the adventures is solo or with one or two companions.

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It's hard to call it an odd exception when it happens multiple times in the same book and in almost every book at least once. In The Gods of Mars John Carter takes command of groups of fighters, leading them through complexes fighting the inhabitants, no less than 3 times - and it's not like ERB's John Carter novels are lengthy books.

MerricB said:

Ditto most of Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser.

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My screen name was chosen after one of the more well-known and recurrent henchmen of the Gray Mouser, so I'm afraid I'll have to disagree on that one.

MerricB said:

Henchmen/Mercenaries are not alien to those sources, but as to being necessary and used all the time, that seems alien.

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I suppose if you're looking at page-count and asking do the henchmen receive the same kind of coverage as the heroes do you could make that argument, but that's taking a very skewed view of things. A hero having henchmen (either planned or impromptu) is a common theme in the inspirational literature for D&D. I don't think anyone claimed that henchmen accompanied the characters on every adventure in their D&D games (that certainly wasn't the case for us). Henchmen were a constant presence in the lives of the PCs, but there were plenty of times when a large group wasn't necessary and a small group of PCs (or even a single PC) would venture out alone. The fact that the henchmen were employed and available didn't necessarily translate into them being constant companions. Ditto followers for high level characters. I think this aligns quite nicely with the treatment of henchmen in ERB, REH, Leiber and Vance's fiction. The henchmen are stated to be there, available if necessary, but do not necessarily play a part in the daily lives of the heroes. They appear when needed and fade into the background when they are superfluous. IME, that's exactly how henchmen are treated in D&D.

So I would argue that the literature and the game are in agreement as far as henchmen being necessary. There are certainly episodes in the literature where the hero(es) would have been lost if not for a trusted band of men at their command. The same is true of D&D from my experience. As for used all the time I would say you're drawing a false dichotomy. As far as I know, most people whose experience with D&D henchmen mirrors my own would agree that henchmen were "used all the time" in that they were present in nearly every campaign and that the vast majority of PCs employed them, but that shouldn't be construed to mean that every henchman or even the majority of henchmen accompanied the PCs on every adventure. In fact, some henchmen were merely transient, hired for specific expeditions that required more fighting muscle and dismissed when they were accomplished. IMO that fits perfectly with the way henchmen are portrayed in the pulp sword and sorcery genre.

Well, for me, it all comes down to this:

I'm not a great DM. Not by a long shot. This is especially true when I'm running modules. Myself & three other people--who play 3.5e every Saturday--have been playing classic D&D (the 1981 Basic & Expert sets) for eight months now--with me running a module. The written rules are easier to understand than 3.5e. We use a few house rules, but they aren't things that are required to "fix" the system. It is quite playable as written. I don't make up lots of ad hoc rules to replace the things 3.5e has that B/X doesn't. And we're having a blast! We've finished a Basic module & when I asked what they wanted to do next, the answer was to continue on with an Expert module.

(Before this, we likewise had loads of fun with classic Traveller. Dying in chargen & all.)

I guess many people said it before, but I suppose that is the soul of D&D. If you can find it in 3e, more power to you. For whatever reason, I have found (to my own surprise, no less!) that spirit more readily with classic D&D than with 3e. (Yet, sharing the companionship & creativity of the friends I play with can make up for that--as long as I don't have to DM 3e).

I suppose I just want to do everything I can to encourage people to look harder at every game system to figure out why somebody thought it was good. Because, when I did, I found out that what I thought I wanted in a game system wasn't what wanted, & I'm having more fun today--no matter what system I play--because of it.

Hussar said:

Let's not forget that it was many years of 1e before the first creature had a character class. Strahd and Ravenloft was pretty late in the 1e era and featured the very first creature with a class. Before that, it never occured to me to do that.

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"Any human or humanoid drained of all life energy by a vampire becomes an appropriately strengthed vampire under control of its slayer. This transformation takes place 1 day after the creature is buried, but if and only if the creature is buried. Thus it is possible to have a vampiric thief, cleric (chaotic evil in vampire form, of course), etc. If the vampire which slew the creature is itself killed, the vampires created by it become freewilled monsters." - 1e AD&D MM, p. 99.

"Pretty late in the 1e era," Hussar? The Monster Manual was published before either the Players Handbook or the Dungeon Masters Guide - it was the first AD&D book, and it provided for vampires with character class levels.

All of the demihumans in the 1e AD&D MM can have non-player characters with class levels, of course. Tritons have clerics. Lycanthropes could be found with character class levels. Liches cast spells at the magic-user or magic-user cleric levels they reached before they were transformed to undead.

And then there's this: "Tribal spell casters are found amongst the following races of creatures: BUGBEARS, CAVEMEN, ETTINS, GIANTS, GNOLLS, GOBLINS, HOBGOBLINS, KOBOLDS, LIZARD MEN, OGRES, ORCS, TROGLODYTES, and TROLLS. These spell casters are divided into two types, shamans and witch doctors.

"Shamans are tribal clerics of 7th level or under....There is a limit according to the race of the shaman as to haw many levels of experience he or she can possess...

"Witch doctors are tribal cleric/magic-users....The maximum level of magic-user is dependent upon the race of the witch doctor..." - 1e AD&D DMG, p. 40.