DnD system grit

[Layander]

I wanted to get opinions about something that I see as a barrier between me and newer editions of the game. Every new edition and expansion moves farther from a gritty dungeon delve game to more flashy action. I am not here to make an edition war so I will be specific. I want to be able to use things like pathfinder or 4th edition but when I try I hit speed bumps and I wanted your input.

1. Environmental hazards trivialized, light? In basic, and first it's a real concern torches weight a pound each, light a small space, burn out quickly and mages on lower levels will usually not wet their 1 spell pick on a light spell. 3.5 pathfinder introduce sunrods, tiny, light, cheap, bright and last for hours, lights no longer a problem. 4th mages can cast light forever. Literally.
Non combat traps? 3.5 is moderately susceptible to traps but I find they are oddly leveled, a pit trap that is 20 feet deep that you can avoid outright and only affects one character seems to be roughly the same challenge rating as 4 orcs. but even if my players hit a trap the reduced random encounters, and increased spell casting makes it easy to recover with out running out of resources.
4th has a larger problem, even if I put a trap that does 30 damage to the group on level 1 they will simply spend five minutes healing, and depending on who their healer is may only use 1 healing surge for it. Getting hit, ignoring it heroically.
Random encounters are removed or weakened or removed entirely allowing players to rest up every fight always being at 100 percent and the less you need to worry about food and water, and light the more you can just take your time and never feel that sense of danger.

The last 2 issues I want to bring up are character power and style.

Power. Gritty characters struggle to survive, more than just in combat, but the more modern the system the more the system is on the players side, helping them survive all encounters with almost no risk. I can explainhow it's stacked that way if I need to but it would take a while.

Style. Gritty characters rely on swords and skill, not a thousand flashy powers. Some times flashy powers are good, but not in my gritty Conan/lord of the rings/Dragonlance/grey hawk settings.

Ideas? No rude answer or fighting. I want honest help, I like certain features of newer editions, character customization and game support being 2 big ones. I appreciate your time on this. Thank you.

 

[aco175]

I've been playing for a long time now and have played each edition as time passed, both game development and my personnal age. I find that each edition had some good ideas and points that built upon the last. Some things seemed to go away were ones that my group never really used anyways. Other things I find are not as important as I grow older and seem to have less time to play and need to only pick what works and people like as the best elements for my group.

I never used weapon speed in earlier editions, although we sometimes used spell casting times. The big fighter using the 2handed sword swung just as fast as the thief with the dagger. It was fun for what we wanted and be blew over that. Same with the dead at 0hp and went with -10 for dead.

4e and to a certain extent 3e are built to play as encounters and seem to now have random encounters that are meant to take away party resources. Today I would find a random pit in the middle of the dungeon to be not worth the effort unless a whole encounter was tied to it. It could be a fight (most likely), but could also be more traps or a skill challenge where the wall with spikes is pushing the party to the pit. There could be a control panel that extends the bridge but maybe not before the wall crashes into them.

I guess the other elements of gritty or realistic also do not lend themselves to fun. At least for me and my group. Things like number of arrows you are carrying, days worth of food/water, and weather you are carrying a lantarn vs a torch do not add more to the fun of the group. These factors can be used if the situation warrents like being in a desert. After the 3rd day I may just say that the party is running out of water and need a survival check. If there is a reason to have the party spend healing surges I'll have them do it, but otherwise they arrive at the oasis tired and near death with some roleplaying and not worry about things like carrying capacity.

 

[Layander]

I understand and respect that, it's a different play style, focused on action or encounter aspects of the game. But that focus shift takes away from the game I want to play, a dungeon exploration resource management game. Sure it's different than what many people in this forum like but it is exactly what my gamers want. I don't know if any of you remember this, but we want to play a table top version of dungeon master computer rpg, which is based on the old, first edition style of DnD play.
I could stay stuck in the past with the "one book" and be afraid of change, but I don't want to be that person. What can we do to keep in the old feeling with newer systems.

While I was out I thought of another example of something that does not work in my setting, it's not in my style for a man to kick a rider with a lance with unarmed attacks, and actually win. Just something I was thinking of.

I am not saying, "don't enjoy your skip strait to the 'good parts' game" but that I want my version of fun to co-exist with out having to hide with ancient books in my closet and fear the new stuff.

 

[Wiseblood]

I understand and respect that, it's a different play style, focused on action or encounter aspects of the game. But that focus shift takes away from the game I want to play, a dungeon exploration resource management game. Sure it's different than what many people in this forum like but it is exactly what my gamers want. I don't know if any of you remember this, but we want to play a table top version of dungeon master computer rpg, which is based on the old, first edition style of DnD play.
I could stay stuck in the past with the "one book" and be afraid of change, but I don't want to be that person. What can we do to keep in the old feeling with newer systems.

While I was out I thought of another example of something that does not work in my setting, it's not in my style for a man to kick a rider with a lance with unarmed attacks, and actually win. Just something I was thinking of.

I am not saying, "don't enjoy your skip strait to the 'good parts' game" but that I want my version of fun to co-exist with out having to hide with ancient books in my closet and fear the new stuff.

Man, I loved that game. Eye of the Beholder too. Gameboy Advance took out the need to eat and drink. I felt cheated.

I don't think you can capture that with modern rules. You will need houserules.

Or you could play the old games and occasionally dabble in the new ones.
Like the guy that has a classic Mustang in the garage he loves. He still drives the new car because it does some things better or differently.

 

[wedgeski]

I really think you're in the wrong house if you want gritty, every-day-is-a-struggle-to-survive roleplaying. That's a specific style of game that D&D hasn't embraced in a long time.

I'm really in the opposite camp to you. In my 4E campaign. I've removed the need to track ammo, rations, water, and any other consumables which are little more than day-to-day book-keeping. I did this with the full buy-in of the party and checked only a few weeks ago whether they were still okay with it, which they were with one exception, who to be fair was more ambivalent about it than opposed to it.

Light is an interesting one. I remember my first forays with basic and AD&D and managing light sources essentially came down to: "Who's carrying the torch?" That was literally it. Questions of how long the torch actually lasted or how far it radiated never really came up. Like so many other changes to D&D over the years, I think the game has simply recognised the reality of the situation and internalised it, and now light is only an issue if I want to make it an issue and build an encounter or other challenge around the problem. That's the way I like it.

There are dozens of ways to make a game like 4E less forgiving, if you're so inclined, just make sure your players are up for it and you should be golden.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Ask and you shall receive!

 

[arscott]

When it comes to resource management, the problem is that rules for grittiness and the feeling of grittiness can be mutually exclusive. When you describe characters as wandering through the desert, running out of food and water, crushed by the weight of your gear and the relentless heat of the sun, that's creates a great thematic experience for the game.

When you start actually tracking the food, water, head, and encumberance, all of a sudden instead of being in the cruel desert, you've evoked the feeling of being in an air-conditioned cubical performing inventory audits. Good rules for the "survivalist" feel you wan't aren't found in any edition of D&D, from OD&D to 4e essentials.

Style. Gritty characters rely on swords and skill, not a thousand flashy powers. Some times flashy powers are good, but not in my gritty Conan/lord of the rings/Dragonlance/grey hawk settings.

I think it's odd that you see all four of those settings as "Gritty". They run a pretty wide gamut from high fantasy to sword and sorcery. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli kill several tons of orcs in a single battle. Tanis & Co get to ride dragons and slay other dragons with alarming regularity. If you see these settings as gritty, it may be appropriate to ask yourself if you're preferences are more about nostalgia than they are about the actual difference between editions.

 

[Layander]

The central story line of lord of the rings was noncombat can 2 halflings survive the day to day struggles of hunger sore muscles injury and the weighty oppression of the one ring and simply survive a walk, not about one combat encounter to the next.

Dragonlance, after escaping the inn of the last home their biggest problem is how to survive a journey, throught the woods with no rations, no supplies.

And in all the settings I named the core person in the world was a warrior, clerics fought in melee not spell slinging. Healing rare, resurrection impossible, and in all of the settings save grey hawk magic is cursed and spell casters are either shunned, pay a physical toll every time they cast a spell, or both.

So the image you get in mind is a band of people relying on wits not spells, items, having to struggle every day.

My players are so frustrated asking me to make the game harder, but it's difficult when the system is made to be very forgiving to the players. and my current group are all 19-22 the youngest people I ever played with.
I understand the reason 4e is the way it is is because a lot of players don't want to go through book keeping for a game, but I liked my old conversations "well looks like that was our last ration, and we are hopelessly lost in this dungeon. Should we try cooking goblin meat?" "I dunno I hear it might be diseased."

I greatly appreciate those trying to help, as for people who only say, "your doing it wrong do it my way" while I respect your way and want you to have fun with it, please understand your version of fun isn't the only fun and some like different things. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want something more from the game than I am getting now. We played all h1-e3 and all felt like it was empty and superficial compared to other mods we had played. Can others like it? Yes. Please do, but my group would like more.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The central story line of lord of the rings was noncombat can 2 halflings survive the day to day struggles of hunger sore muscles injury and the weighty oppression of the one ring and simply survive a walk, not about one combat encounter to the next.

Dragonlance, after escaping the inn of the last home their biggest problem is how to survive a journey, throught the woods with no rations, no supplies.

And in all the settings I named the core person in the world was a warrior, clerics fought in melee not spell slinging. Healing rare, resurrection impossible, and in all of the settings save grey hawk magic is cursed and spell casters are either shunned, pay a physical toll every time they cast a spell, or both.

So the image you get in mind is a band of people relying on wits not spells, items, having to struggle every day.

My players are so frustrated asking me to make the game harder, but it's difficult when the system is made to be very forgiving to the players. and my current group are all 19-22 the youngest people I ever played with.
I understand the reason 4e is the way it is is because a lot of players don't want to go through book keeping for a game, but I liked my old conversations "well looks like that was our last ration, and we are hopelessly lost in this dungeon. Should we try cooking goblin meat?" "I dunno I hear it might be diseased."

I

I think your expectations are perfectly reasonable. There are lots of small press games out there that have more old school lethality. I haven't played it, but heard great things about Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Have you tried something like Runequest or Rolemaster? Haven't played those in a while but I remember the grittiness being more than in D&D. Shadow Sword and Spell by Rogue Games is a good one too. I found it to be nice and gritty, relatively low magic. You could also just play an older edition of D&D since you stated the problem is each edition has moved further away from your prefered style.

Do you tend to like rules light, rules medium or rules heavy?

I am working on a game that is a bit gritty (its a historical setting but could easily be shifted to fantasy) and would be happy to send you the manuscript. The game has lots of options so you can scale the lethality (but the default is itself pretty lethal).

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Honestly I don't think 4e lends itself to gritty well at all. It is meant to be a high heroism, flashy system. 3e/pathfinder is a tiny bit better, but still quite bad at it, particularly at higher levels.


If I were you I'd go with a different D&D. There are several options:

OSRIC
Castles and Crusades
E6


All of these are current/supported. They have varying levels of support, of course, with E6 being not really a game, so much as limitations on 3e/pathfinder that keep it in the lower/more gritty levels.

I'm not very well informed about the old school revolution, but that seems to be where your heart lies.


Ask more about that, and I'm sure those who ARE well informed about current old school releases will be happy to share.


Best of luck to ya.