Plane Sailing said:
This comment doesn't match up with my experience of playing OD&D, AD&D1e and 2e.
Probably because you (like most people) didn't actually play OD&D or 1e AD&D using the actual published rules.
3e has become more focused on tactical wargaming (just take a look at the revision between 3.0 and 3.5 if you don't believe me!) but this has clearly not been the case through the games history. The combat system may have had its roots in Chainmail man to man combat, but it was a long, long way from being a wargame even in those early days.
1e D&D expressed movement and ranges in inches. It used combat charts, and percentile matrices to resolve combat. It used weapon speed factors, declaring actions, attack roll modifiers by weapon type. The combat system used grid based movement indorrs, and hex based movement outdoors. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Whether you want to admit it or not, older versions of D&D were
more wargame like than the current one.
As for swinging on chandeliers and such - the DMG gives clear guidance for that kind of thing (p25). Your 3.5e DMG actually instructs you, the DM, in the following way
"While the combat actions described in the PHB are numerous and fairly comprehensive, they cannot begin to cover every possible action that a character might want to take. Your job is to make up rules on the spot to handle such things."
Yes it does. BUt basically, that means the game becomes a round of "mother may I" as the players try to figure out, with no guidance themselves, what sort of thing their PC can and cannot do. Given the number of DMs who cannot handle the effects of clearly defined effects in the rules (such as the result of using various social skills on NPCs), forgive me if I'm less than enthusiastic about leaving the capabilities of characters entirely up to guessing at what the DM has in mind.
It then goes on to give some specific examples.
In the light of this quote FROM THE DMG, I submit that this whole 'mother may I' issue is a complete red herring, and not related to the D&D we know and love playing.
Actually, it is a central issue. How much of the game is to be left up to DM fiat, and how much is to be set out ahead of time. Obviosuly, no rule set can cover every possible situation, D&D is too open ended for that. But what it
can do, and what it
should do is cover situations that are likely to come up on a regular basis. Combat is, and pretty much always has been (and probably always will be) a part of D&D. Movement during combat is a pretty critical element of the game. Therefore, the rules should cover it more fully than "ask your mother if you can".