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With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5992540" data-attributes="member: 87792"><p>Except the fact <em>you only make one attack per minute</em>. Is everyone in a combat automatically under the effects of a slow spell? As I've posted before, this bit of AD&D shattered my immersion, my sense of process sim (if I wanted <em>that</em> GURPS did a much better job), and my feeling I had direct control rather than pawn-stance control of my character. 4e I get to decide not only what he attacks but how he does it and how he keeps track of a rapidly unfolding situation like combat.</p><p> </p><p>One roll for one minute in combat is not and can not be a process sim. It's a massive abstraction.</p><p> </p><p></p><p> </p><p>This is normally the case even for those of us who don't see hp as purely physical. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> </p><p>If it were a mystery, spell levels wouldn't be quite so tightly defined and usable in world. </p><p> </p><p></p><p> </p><p>4e was unplayable for you in specific. I like sim elements of games - and bounced hard off AD&D partly because the sim did not match up to the world. I honestly find 4e a much better sim than I do AD&D.</p><p> </p><p></p><p> </p><p>1e was written in <em>pawn</em> stance as I've said before. This is not the immersionist game you want to claim. And in pawn stance, minute combat rounds make sense. They are a massive abstraction of something you want to know the outcome of but don't need to be immersed for.</p><p> </p><p>Yes, if you ignore the great glaring problem with 1 minute combat rounds you can claim they are immersive. But calling it a process-sim is ... strange and counterintuitive to me. A process-sim is GURPS with one <em>second</em> rounds. Or at most (and as I handle both 3e and 4e) OODA cycles.</p><p> </p><p></p><p> </p><p>You can believe it all you like. But that doesn't make it true. And given statements from Gygax himself on these boards, and Mike Mornard (one of the original players) on RPG.net I'm going to believe them rather than you - they are saying literally the opposite to you.</p><p> </p><p>One hell of a lot of the AD&D ruleset is about balance. Like the differing XP tables and the weapon damage against large creatures being a stealth buff for fighters. Gygax has on these boards stated that he added Weapon Specialisation, the Cavalier, and the Barbarian in Unearthed Arcana specifically to help the fighter's balance.</p><p></p><p>Mike Mornard/Old Geezer is even clearer. His description of the way D&D started is "We made some <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> up we thought would be cool." It was about cool and fun, not about a sim. (If you're interested in how things actually were in the early days he's answering questions in a <a href="http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?633165-So" target="_blank">current thread on RPG.net). </a>His Ramshorn dungeon was in line with what other people were doing at the time. And when people asked what the monsters ate he simply added a McDonalds on the sixth level.</p><p> </p><p>And really, you only need to look at D&D's roots to tell it's not a process sim. It's a hacked tabletop wargame. And one centered around Dungeons - possibly the weirdest ecosystems ever invented (and for that matter Dragons - how do the things fly?) And utterly absurd monsters - how does the Rust Monster do its thing? (Apparently it was invented on the spur of the moment because it was an odd looking monster that was rust coloured). Such sim elements as there were in pre-3e D&D were there because sometimes PCs wanted to take a closer look at the world, and because interacting directly with the fiction at certain points rather than handling the whole thing abstractly was what separated D&D from the wargames it grew out of.</p><p> </p><p>If you want a process-sim game, go play GURPS. Of course, that's what happened when 3.0 was written. The process-sim crowd took over the game. And I believe that 4e is a <em>better</em> process sim than AD&D - but the difference is AD&D breaks all over the place as a process sim when not engaged with or preventing you engaging, 4e you need to engage.</p><p> </p><p></p><p> </p><p>And by doing so, returned D&D to its roots as something about fun and about the game that the process-sim people had taken over.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 5992540, member: 87792"] Except the fact [I]you only make one attack per minute[/I]. Is everyone in a combat automatically under the effects of a slow spell? As I've posted before, this bit of AD&D shattered my immersion, my sense of process sim (if I wanted [I]that[/I] GURPS did a much better job), and my feeling I had direct control rather than pawn-stance control of my character. 4e I get to decide not only what he attacks but how he does it and how he keeps track of a rapidly unfolding situation like combat. One roll for one minute in combat is not and can not be a process sim. It's a massive abstraction. This is normally the case even for those of us who don't see hp as purely physical. If it were a mystery, spell levels wouldn't be quite so tightly defined and usable in world. 4e was unplayable for you in specific. I like sim elements of games - and bounced hard off AD&D partly because the sim did not match up to the world. I honestly find 4e a much better sim than I do AD&D. 1e was written in [I]pawn[/I] stance as I've said before. This is not the immersionist game you want to claim. And in pawn stance, minute combat rounds make sense. They are a massive abstraction of something you want to know the outcome of but don't need to be immersed for. Yes, if you ignore the great glaring problem with 1 minute combat rounds you can claim they are immersive. But calling it a process-sim is ... strange and counterintuitive to me. A process-sim is GURPS with one [I]second[/I] rounds. Or at most (and as I handle both 3e and 4e) OODA cycles. You can believe it all you like. But that doesn't make it true. And given statements from Gygax himself on these boards, and Mike Mornard (one of the original players) on RPG.net I'm going to believe them rather than you - they are saying literally the opposite to you. One hell of a lot of the AD&D ruleset is about balance. Like the differing XP tables and the weapon damage against large creatures being a stealth buff for fighters. Gygax has on these boards stated that he added Weapon Specialisation, the Cavalier, and the Barbarian in Unearthed Arcana specifically to help the fighter's balance. Mike Mornard/Old Geezer is even clearer. His description of the way D&D started is "We made some :):):):) up we thought would be cool." It was about cool and fun, not about a sim. (If you're interested in how things actually were in the early days he's answering questions in a [URL="http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?633165-So"]current thread on RPG.net). [/URL]His Ramshorn dungeon was in line with what other people were doing at the time. And when people asked what the monsters ate he simply added a McDonalds on the sixth level. And really, you only need to look at D&D's roots to tell it's not a process sim. It's a hacked tabletop wargame. And one centered around Dungeons - possibly the weirdest ecosystems ever invented (and for that matter Dragons - how do the things fly?) And utterly absurd monsters - how does the Rust Monster do its thing? (Apparently it was invented on the spur of the moment because it was an odd looking monster that was rust coloured). Such sim elements as there were in pre-3e D&D were there because sometimes PCs wanted to take a closer look at the world, and because interacting directly with the fiction at certain points rather than handling the whole thing abstractly was what separated D&D from the wargames it grew out of. If you want a process-sim game, go play GURPS. Of course, that's what happened when 3.0 was written. The process-sim crowd took over the game. And I believe that 4e is a [I]better[/I] process sim than AD&D - but the difference is AD&D breaks all over the place as a process sim when not engaged with or preventing you engaging, 4e you need to engage. And by doing so, returned D&D to its roots as something about fun and about the game that the process-sim people had taken over. [/QUOTE]
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