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

[ColonelHardisson]

If the sacred cows were AoO's, feats, templates, CRs and the d20 mechanic, then I'd love to see them gone.

Edit: Good Lord, yes, and PrC's. They urgently need dropping.

Feats are nice, easy ways to customize a character to taste. Templates make customizing monsters quick and easy.

The d20 mechanic is, I would say, the stongest of the new sacred cows. Determine a DC and roll higher than it with a d20 - sounds simple and easy to me. Much better than having to reference 5 or 6 different charts.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I am pretty shocked that so many people apparently hate a system of which they know basically nothing.

Which system is that?

 

[Umbran]

A solid system can have all the mechanics necessary in one core book

I am not convinced "all the mechanics necessary" is a well-defined set. Each person will have a different idea about what is "necessary", and what isn't.

 

[Lanefan]

Arrrr, I'll run me flag up the pole 'ere...

I voted to hate it, but more simply put, I'd not play it (which really ought to be an option in the poll...).

The question also becomes, what is a sacred cow? Has the d20 mechanic achieved that status? Has the feat mechanic? How about the skill system? All of those are 3e developments, and all have their pros and cons...

If any "sacred cow" ends up disappearing I suspect it'd be part of the Vancian magic system. I can see Wizards and Sorcerors being folded together such that while you can only cast so many spells-per-level-per-day, those spells can be anything in your book or realm of knowledge, whatever.

One other sacred cow not previously mentioned, that needs to be kept: the 6 core stats.

Lanefan

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Arrrr, I'll run me flag up the pole 'ere...

I voted to hate it, but more simply put, I'd not play it (which really ought to be an option in the poll...).

Good point.

The question also becomes, what is a sacred cow? Has the d20 mechanic achieved that status? Has the feat mechanic? How about the skill system? All of those are 3e developments, and all have their pros and cons...

You're right. It seems everyone has a different idea about what sacred cows are. My own rule of thumb is that any trope that has existed in every iteration of the game is a sacred cow. These include armor class, classes, levels, and hit points.

One other sacred cow not previously mentioned, that needs to be kept: the 6 core stats.

Good call. I'd say that the 6 core stats are, indeed, sacred cows. I'd also say that the classic 3-18 (or 20, really) spread for stats is a sacred cow.

 

[Choranzanus]

Which system is that?

4ed without sacred cows...but we don't know which, so this turns to a basic rules discussions.

 

[JoeGKushner]

How else would you introduce new mechanics?

Well, you'd be surprised, but many game engines actually put all the actual, you know, rules in the core book. Other books usually just show you how to use those existing rules to model your own type of campaign. For example, Hero 5th ed has UNTIL power books which show the reader how to create different types of powers. GURPS has the Powers book. ec....

Plus, what game company is gonna design a game that would never require further publications to add to ro support it?

You mean outside of the fluff? Outside of the spell descriptions and the guilds, and the backgrounds, and the characters, and going from 30 PrCs to 8?

Such as? I think the core rules of D&D cover a lot of concepts pretty well. The only thing really lacking is an article discussing how to use the rules to model a wide variety of concepts. James Wyatt had a series of articles in Dragon soon after the release of 3e demonstrating how multiclassing could be used to generate a variety of concepts, but they sank away quietly as everyone scrambled to get the new prestige classes. It's not because these prestige classes were any better at modeling a given concept than multiclassing or wise selection of skills and feats. It was, and is, because prestige classes are the new shiny toy. Plus, they are the weak link in 3e - I like the concept of prestige classes, but if there's anything about 3e most likely to cause power creep, it's prestige classes.

I played a lot of rolemaster. In rolemaster, straight from the get go, you could be a warrior-mage. You could be a fighter-thief. Monte took these and other ideas and wisely brought them to Arcana Evolved. There are dozens of o ther types of character you can't play based on the power level of starting characters of that require dozens of sourcebooks to get that right feat/classs/PrC/domian/spell,, etc...

No it wouldn't. If you think that sacrificing some of D&D's most enduring sacred cows will eliminate rules bloat due to endless supplements, I'd say you'll end up disappointed. GURPS doesn't use classes and levels, and how many supplements does it have?

Have you actually read any of the GURPS books or are you just talking about the amount of them? The difference is that there are actually not a lot of new rules as opposed to ideas on how to use the rules to master that particular genre. Unless I'm wildly misremembering how GURPS Powers and GURPS Fantasy read.

Ditto for Hero. Their Fantasy book is one every gamer running D&D should pick up right now. The stateless information alone is worth the cover price. Same thing for anyone playing Mutants & Masterminds with Champions' Villany Amok, a book of ideas on how to use villains in the campaign that doesn't rely on new rules.

The accumulating weight of the system you speak of is, in my opinion, a non-issue. The game is only crushed under that weight if one is compulsive and has to use every supplement. The core game can be used for just about any given character concept from classic fantasy. The core can be used on its own without recourse to any other books. The game mechanics don't "force" anything. There will never be the perfect game system that somehow eliminates the need for additional or alternative rules.

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.

As far as the perfect game, no, there never will be. However, this doesn't eliminate the need to keep looking at the game to see what changes can be made and made for the better only to be held back by fear. (Hell, Magic Missile is a sacred cow and it's broken. Even in 3.5 where a lot of other spells were nerfed, they coudln't stand up to people and say, "Hey, we're in a new millenium and we're fixing magic missile.)

 

[Arnwyn]

I see a lot of people saying that D&D HAS to have these concepts or it isn't D&D. 3rd ed. had some bovine carange (Thac0, negative ACs) and I'm sure that some people were like "it's gotta have Thac0 or else it's not D&D. Well thac0 is gone and I'm playing D&D.

Those specific items are not 'sacred cows'.

 

[librarius_arcana]

Evolve or Die

Scared Cow MMMmmmm,

 

[Diremede]

If you kill all the sacred cows in D&D, then you just killed D&D and created something else. D&D is what D&D is, you should know that when you play it. Its a class system, with class abilities, racial traits, HP's, AC, and Saving Throws, and its all famous Magic Missile! (and I don't care what people say its not broken, as a 1st -2nd level wizard its the only way you can even hope to damage your enemies unless they are poorly armored peasants that are unarmed and standing still.)

If you want a point type system with a skill point character growth and wound points instead of hit points, and DR instead of AC, and blah blah blah, well guess what, those games already exist, go play them if thats what you want. Or for that matter if you think that some D&D concepts should be changed, then change them, no on is stopping you, you can create house rules till your blue in the face. I see no good reason to change D&D so drastically that you take away from what makes it popular. 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?

Also I played D&D for a good 10 years solid before 3E came out, I had a lot of house rules, but the core of it was still D&D, and I only stopped playing 2E, because I had checked 3.0 out, they had made some good changes, yet kept the game intact. At this point 3.5 allows for all sorts of things, and I don't even own a ton of supplements, I only have 5, and I see no reason that I can't play 3.5 for another 10-15 years, sacred cows and all.