Would you play D&D if the sacred cows were sacrificed?

[JoeGKushner]

Its a simple game with clear rules and class abilities that make it easy to learn and fun to play, I mean thats what its all about right, the fun?

Any book that has three core books each some odd 300+ pages is hardly what I would consider simple.

Any book that has a monthly FAQ session in it's official magazine is hardly what I'd call clear.

Any book that has a class so complicated that they have to make a stupidifed version of it (sorcerer vs wizard), is not easy to learn.

Just my opinion mind you.

 

[billd91]

Nonsense.

The D&D engine has NEVER modeled classic fantasy. It models D&D fantasy. An entertaining genre in and of itself but a high level barbarian ala Conan with no magic items facing an equal level CR enemy is going to get his butt handed to him quickly unless the GM is using huge amounts of house rules or a variant d20 system.

This is definitely not true. D&D has always been the best game at handling classic, Conan/Elric/John Carter style fantasy. And it still is. 3E has gotten a bit more... equipmenty... than previous editions (where a high level barbarian certainly could go toe to toe with powerful enemies) but you still have classic fantasy even if the PCs are fighting things that aren't up to 3E CR levels.
And it's many of the core mechanics that make D&D perform so well for classic fantasy in which the protagonist takes enormous punishment, faces off against numerous lower-quality foes, and manages to keep fighting until he ultimately prevails.

 

[GVDammerung]

Any book that has three core books each some odd 300+ pages is hardly what I would consider simple.

Any book that has a monthly FAQ session in it's official magazine is hardly what I'd call clear.

Any book that has a class so complicated that they have to make a stupidifed version of it (sorcerer vs wizard), is not easy to learn.

Just my opinion mind you.

Mine too. Amen!

 

[GVDammerung]

The D&D engine has NEVER modeled classic fantasy. It models D&D fantasy. An entertaining genre in and of itself but a high level barbarian ala Conan with no magic items facing an equal level CR enemy is going to get his butt handed to him quickly unless the GM is using huge amounts of house rules or a variant d20 system.

Absolutely. D&D is a mishmash of any number of fantasy tropes tossed in a blender. It is its own beastie.

 

[JoeGKushner]

This is definitely not true. D&D has always been the best game at handling classic, Conan/Elric/John Carter style fantasy. And it still is. 3E has gotten a bit more... equipmenty... than previous editions (where a high level barbarian certainly could go toe to toe with powerful enemies) but you still have classic fantasy even if the PCs are fighting things that aren't up to 3E CR levels.
And it's many of the core mechanics that make D&D perform so well for classic fantasy in which the protagonist takes enormous punishment, faces off against numerous lower-quality foes, and manages to keep fighting until he ultimately prevails.

We're never going to agree with this.

Elric? The guy summoned gods. He made pacts with elemental lords.

He was one of the best swordsman of his world.

he fought with an artifact blade.

This is pretty much at the start of his career.

You are not modelling Elric in the D&D game system.

You know why? Even if you make him super high level, you've given him abilities that he never had in the game. The dross of the system will cling to him.

Conan? He got knocked out a lot. The D&D engine still doesn't handle this well.

More equipmenty? We're not realy going over this again are we? By the book, even the 1st edition of the game had hordes of magic items. Hordes of them. Page per page, didn't someone show that the old sysem actually had MORE treasure and magic?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Absolutely. D&D is a mishmash of any number of fantasy tropes tossed in a blender. It is its own beastie.

And I'm not saying that's wrong at all.

I'm not saying it can't handle low fantasy. (A Game of Thrones, Black Company, Grim Tales, Thieves World, etc...)

But by the book, by itself, it doesn't model anything but itself. It doesn't even model the fiction lines inspired by it.

Show me some useful clerics in the D&D novels and I'll show you a rare bird.

I love D&D, but ask me if I'd like it to change and the answer is a resounding yes.

 

[librarius_arcana]

Any book that has three core books each some odd 300+ pages is hardly what I would consider simple.

Any book that has a monthly FAQ session in it's official magazine is hardly what I'd call clear.

Any book that has a class so complicated that they have to make a stupidifed version of it (sorcerer vs wizard), is not easy to learn.

Just my opinion mind you.

Mine also,

 

[GVDammerung]

If you kill all the sacred cows in D&D, then you just killed D&D and created something else.

Its called 3X. 3X substantially decoupled D&D from it rules history, much more than any prior edition change. Alls now pretty much fair for 4E and it still being "branded" D&D and accepted as such by customers. D&D is no longer a rules set; it is a "brand," as much or more. The sacred rules cows are now far less sacred and far more likely to be made into hamburger. Not saying that's a good or bad thing. Just saying. YMMV

 

[billd91]

We're never going to agree with this.

Elric? The guy summoned gods. He made pacts with elemental lords.

He was one of the best swordsman of his world.

he fought with an artifact blade.

This is pretty much at the start of his career.

You are not modelling Elric in the D&D game system.

You know why? Even if you make him super high level, you've given him abilities that he never had in the game. The dross of the system will cling to him.

Conan? He got knocked out a lot. The D&D engine still doesn't handle this well.

More equipmenty? We're not realy going over this again are we? By the book, even the 1st edition of the game had hordes of magic items. Hordes of them. Page per page, didn't someone show that the old sysem actually had MORE treasure and magic?

Clearly we're not going to agree on this but here are some points:
Elric's career didn't start with him summoning Arioch and seeking out Stormbringer. That's the start of his 2nd career as an adventurer rather than a well trained, well equipped monarch of a brutal and rough nation.

Yes, 3E is more equipmenty because the expected threat level of monsters and opponents is built around an assumption of a certain amount of gear. Not so earlier editions. You may have needed a decent magical weapon to fight a lot of demons, devils, and golems, but that was about it. There were a lot of magic items, but the same assumption wasn't there and built into the encounter-designing system.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Clearly we're not going to agree on this but here are some points:
Elric's career didn't start with him summoning Arioch and seeking out Stormbringer. That's the start of his 2nd career as an adventurer rather than a well trained, well equipped monarch of a brutal and rough nation.

Elric was well versed in summoning gods at the start of the series. In the first book he summons the king of water elementals to save him from drowning. He's still using an artifact sword at that point, but it's the old Eternal Champions, Eural Aubek (misspelled that first name.)

Heck, in the first book, while he's still king, he gets Stormbringer. Am I misremembering the series here? Elric, in the first book, is still king and now has his blade and has Arioch as his patron.

And career? Hell, back in the day you'd multi-class, and that in and of itself is a solution to the problem of no warrior mages/rogue-warriors/rogue-wizards in the core rules. The elimination of multi-classing was useful in streamlining the book when couped with the ease of "classic" dual classing (going from one class to another.)

Yes, 3E is more equipmenty because the expected threat level of monsters and opponents is built around an assumption of a certain amount of gear. Not so earlier editions. You may have needed a decent magical weapon to fight a lot of demons, devils, and golems, but that was about it. There were a lot of magic items, but the same assumption wasn't there and built into the encounter-designing system.

And what assumptions were built into the system? That the GM had to do a lot of hand holding in order to avoid issues like that cropping up in the first place. Issues which are going to be far more in need of rapid hand waving in 3e if you mess with the basic assumptions.

In the officially published adventurers, if there was just as much if not more treasure, that would indicate that by the book, the advneturers required just as much equipment no? are you just handwaving away part of TSR's publishing history with one hand and trying to cling to some part of it with the other?

I don't disagree with your philosphy, but it doesn't hold up 'officially'.