Old School : Tucker's Kobolds and Trained Jellies

[Andor]

Back in the old days, when we hewed our dice out of dinosaur bones and the rules were printed on clay tablets, there was a convention that where the rules did not contradict specifically, things worked just like they do in reality.

You can read it on the old Dragon magazine articles: About how fireballs should incinerate all the flammable treasure, and do you know how low the melting point of gold is? Kobolds using flaming barricades and murder holes. The party using a bell and some fireballs over the course of a week to use Pavlovian conditioning to train an ochre jelly that the bell meant it was time to run so they didn't have to fight the damn thing.

Now the pendulum drifted away from this idea over the years, to the point where in 4e it was pretty explicit that you could not "power stunt" your abilities in unexpected ways, nor need you fear a fireball destroying the 1,000 origami cranes that was the McGuffin.

Now the old school way could and did lead to problems. If you've ever watched a group of engineering students try to explain their plan for dealing with the orcs using a mobile seige tower to a Poly-sci major GM, you know what I mean.

What do you guys think, is it a good idea to bring back that sense of freedom/verisimilitude? The up-side is player and GM creativity, and the 'remember that time' stories. The down-side is having to listen to "But how was I supposed to know using burning hands in the middle of an ancient and dry rope bridge over a thousand foot chasm was a bad idea? You're a mean GM!"

 

[Alan Shutko]

One of the qualities I enjoy most about D&D, and tabletop RPGs in general, is the ability to go off script and do things that the rules and the adventure didn't anticipate. To me, that's the main reason to play a TTRPG instead of a game on a computer, because the ability to do anything I want outweighs the hassle of keeping track of rules, points, and rolls manually.

I understand this comes close to playing "Mother May I" but it works well with a set of reasonable people in a group. If you are playing with a bunch of unreasonable people, a more strict set of rules will be more valuable. But then, why not just play a computer game if you're stuck playing with unreasonable people?

 

[BobTheNob]

This is one of the great difficulties 5e will face. This element of play has gotten slimmer with every edition...never totally gone, but the mechanical and slick we get, the less play like this factors in.

I loved 4e, but I yearn for the days of old in many ways. For what you are suggesting we would need to roll back on the "mechanical cleverness" and clarity that has been established to date.

I have been following this forum religiously and Im pretty convinced we have spread camps of the modern devotees and the old school devotees. No idea how 5e will satisfy both sides of the divide, but I wish them luck.

 

[BobTheNob]

I understand this comes close to playing "Mother May I" but it works well with a set of reasonable people in a group. If you are playing with a bunch of unreasonable people, a more strict set of rules will be more valuable. But then, why not just play a computer game if you're stuck playing with unreasonable people?

The more strict the game rules become, why not just play a computer game indeed? (Players reasonable or not!)

Tabletop has the unique aspect of being able to step outside of the mechanics and that is its key draw. What the OP is suggesting is not just desirable...its essential! The question is, to what degree?

 

[Hussar]

Now the pendulum drifted away from this idea over the years, to the point where in 4e it was pretty explicit that you could not "power stunt" your abilities in unexpected ways, nor need you fear a fireball destroying the 1,000 origami cranes that was the McGuffin.

Wait.. what?

This is wrong in so many ways I honestly don't know where to begin. Lessee, you have Page 42 which explicitly states:

Your presense as the Dungeon Master is what makes D&D such a great game. You make it possible for the players to try anything they can imagine.

Nothing you've actually mentioned doesn't work in 4e. Fire burns things - (4e DMG page 65-6), Kobolds using terrain effects is hardwired into the system and the system EXPECTS you to use it, not as a once in a while thing, but every encounter.

Look, I know it's cool and all to make claims that edition X can or can't do Y, but, jeez, this isn't even trying.

 

[KesselZero]

I'd love to see the old playstyle you describe come back, but I recognize that that's purely a personal preference. I think that in such a game, the DM has a responsibility to remind players that their choices might have bad consequences, like "Are you sure you want to use burning hands on this rope bridge?" or "Are you sure you want to cast fireball into the origami-crane storage room?" (Why do all these examples always involve fire, by the way?) There are DMs who'll just say "Okay, you cast your spell, the bridge burns away, and you fall a thousand feet to your death. Ha ha!" but I wouldn't really want to play with one.

 

[Grazzt]

What do you guys think, is it a good idea to bring back that sense of freedom/verisimilitude? The up-side is player and GM creativity, and the 'remember that time' stories. The down-side is having to listen to "But how was I supposed to know using burning hands in the middle of an ancient and dry rope bridge over a thousand foot chasm was a bad idea? You're a mean GM!"

Yep. Great idea to bring it back. And here's a link along those lines (kinda). Tomb of Horrors, small space crawlway (about mid-way down the page at the link below), thief decides to start firing off a wand of wonder...player rolls fireball.

http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2008/04/tomb-of-horrors.html

Some of the best stuff from our campaign are "remember when" stories and sometimes involve things like the above, or like you mentioned, or even unlucky dice rolls (my brother's paladin failing his resurrection survival chance by rolling 00 for example)

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't disagree with the rather unfortunate premise. Writing a set of game rules that facilitates common sense is not as easy as it sounds. I hope there is a more open-ended design philosophy, and less dumbing down of certain game elements to balance them, but reality (and its fantastical counterpart) is awfully complicated to describe in a couple hundred pages.

 

[the Jester]

Now the pendulum drifted away from this idea over the years, to the point where in 4e it was pretty explicit that you could not "power stunt" your abilities in unexpected ways, nor need you fear a fireball destroying the 1,000 origami cranes that was the McGuffin.

You're exactly wrong; either you haven't read the 4e DMG or you never reached pg 42.

 

[Incenjucar]

This is a silly, sad myth.

It's true that 4E doesn't describe the specific temperature of its attacks, but that's as far as it goes. DM and Player HABITS may have changed, but the rules explicitly point out that damage can happen to objects, while not forcing it.