J. Tweet's comments on Swords & Wizardry

[stuart]

Whether or not you agree with him on that point, he mentions a LOT of stuff there and in his previous posts that were clearly clunky.

5% XP bonuses, needing a HIGH attack roll to hit a LOW armor class (and a range of 9 to -10 wtf is that?), having a different XP table for every class, which was necessitated in part because the classes were not balanced against one another etc etc.

Sorry, I freaking love AD&D, but a lot of its RULES are not worth having any nostalgia for. I think he's spot on there.

I agree that 5% XP bonuses, heck ANY XP bonuses based on stats is clunky.

High attack roll to hit a Low armor class is a personal taste thing, although I don't think it's wonderful it's not THAT horrible either.

Negative armour class numbers is pretty bad. Most people have a hard time subtracting negative numbers... although we always used the charts.

Different XP tables... that's a matter of preference. The Thief leveling much faster than the other classes was a benefit to taking the thief -- you'd get that 2nd level hit dice much faster.

Not using miniatures -- that's totally a preference thing. There's nothing inherently better about playing an RPG with miniatures or without. They're just different games.

Which I think might have been Jonathan's difficulty with playing S&W... he really would have rather been playing 3e instead.

 

[Eridanis]

OK. This topic can be discussed without the vitriol that's already starting. Discuss the merits all you like, but when it gets to impuging someone's motives or denigrating one's background, you're taking a vacation.

And honestly, if someone's doubting Tweet's "old-school" credentials, they're really lacking in their knowledge of RPG history. Between Ars Magica, AD&D, and D&D 3E (and that's just off the top of my head of what he's had his hand in), I think he knows whereof he speaks.

 

[Eridanis]

double-post

 

[ExploderWizard]

Whether or not you agree with him on that point, he mentions a LOT of stuff there and in his previous posts that were clearly clunky.

5% XP bonuses, needing a HIGH attack roll to hit a LOW armor class (and a range of 9 to -10 wtf is that?), having a different XP table for every class, which was necessitated in part because the classes were not balanced against one another etc etc.

Sorry, I freaking love AD&D, but a lot of its RULES are not worth having any nostalgia for. I think he's spot on there.

I find it difficult to believe that someone involved in the design of a system as math intensive as 3E has a problem calculating a 5% bonus to earned experience but sees nothing wrong with stacking bonuses from many sources and recalculating these multiple times during combat as buffs are applied and dispelled.

As far as class balance is concerned, I enjoy the concept of different classes providing vastly different play experiences. If these differences result in varying power levels between classes thats a part of being different. I'm not playing D&D as a competitive game so precise power balance means very little.

I wouldn't call all the old subsystems clunky. It's easy to remove subsystems that you find clunky with your own material without bringing down the house of cards. Some people enjoy a more freeform style of gaming that has nothing to do with nostalgia and calling thier choice of rulesets clunky is no more fair than wondering why those who prefer complex rules require 800 pages or so of core material to play a game of the imagination.

 

[Vigilance]

Different XP tables... that's a matter of preference. The Thief leveling much faster than the other classes was a benefit to taking the thief -- you'd get that 2nd level hit dice much faster.

I disagree here. Having different XP tables was a symptom of a very serious problem.

Getting that "second HD" faster for the Thief might have been great but it's a bad thing that he NEEDED it because he was worse than the other classes.

Mage gets sleep, Fighter gets the best HD and attack bonus, Cleric gets healing and turn undead and the thief gets a 15% chance to disarm traps.

Or in other words, he had an 85% chance to NOT disarm a trap, and thereby put himself in extreme danger for the party.

I think the classes not being balanced in D&D prior to 3e was possibly the worst thing about the game.

It created HOSTS of other problems (this is my opinion in case that isn't clear).

The weird ability score requirements of some classes, like all Paladins needing a 17 Cha, was a cludgy attempt at balance after the fact.

And of course, the fact that Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures introduced a host of uber-classes really made the whole house of cards less stable than ever.

Which I think might have been Jonathan's difficulty with playing S&W... he really would have rather been playing 3e instead.

Well, regardless of what he'd rather have been playing, I don't think his points were bad ones.

A lot of the things that make people play retro-clones is nostalgia.

That was the main point I saw him make, and I think he's right.

Does that mean those games have no value as games? No, but then, I'm sure he didn't say that. He had plenty of good things to say about his game.

Your point seems to be that preferring 3e over S&W is subjective. Ok- I think that's rather obvious.

I don't think Tweet was trying to say 3e is objectively better. He was just saying nostalgia and rules-lightness were S&W's two main sources of appeal.

 

[JeffB]

No doubt that despite my love for S&W (and the game it's based on) there are some "wonky" issues with mechanics. BUT- Thats part of the fun- game rules IMO don't have to make all that much sense to enjoy the game. Chess Monopoly, whatever.


EDIT side discussion about Tweet removed- as per Mods (though there was no vitriol)

 

[Hussar]

double-post

Heh, does this mean we're doubly moderated.

The problem with the different xp tables is, as Vigilance says, it's a very poor system of balance. You're basically saying that level is meaningless since the power disparity between various levels is so great that you actually should be based on xp instead.

In other words, the old modules shouldn't say X characters of Y to Z level, but rather, X characters of Y XP, presuming of course, that the game actually does balance that way, which I'm not sure that it does.

After all, you're basically saying that the 1st level thief is worth considerably less than the 1st level fighter. IIRC, thief xp was about 1/2 of fighter, so, you're only par with the fighter on even numbered levels.

And, where things get REALLY ugly is with the multi-classing rules. In AD&D, everyone was unlimited in thief, regardless of their other classes. Plugging on a thief class to any other class didn't significantly change your level and you gained all the abilities of a thief class.

 

[Vigilance]

I find it difficult to believe that someone involved in the design of a system as math intensive as 3E has a problem calculating a 5% bonus to earned experience but sees nothing wrong with stacking bonuses from many sources and recalculating these multiple times during combat as buffs are applied and dispelled.

I think the idea that he saw nothing wrong with stacking bonuses is a fairly large assumption.

I saw his mention of AC going from 9 to -10 and 5% XP bonuses to be instances where rules were put in S&W specifically to invoke nostalgia, as opposed to being rules that NEEDED to be there.

I have never thumbed through a game manual and asked "why doesn't this class have a 5% XP bonus"?

As far as class balance is concerned, I enjoy the concept of different classes providing vastly different play experiences. If these differences result in varying power levels between classes thats a part of being different. I'm not playing D&D as a competitive game so precise power balance means very little.

I think the different classes offering a different play experience is fine.

And no, I don't think "precise" power balance is necessary.

On the other hand, what "different play experience" did the Cavalier add? He was just a fighter who got more bonuses in return for a watered down Paladin code and a slight increase in the XP needed to gain a level.

And some of the classes weren't missing a "precise" power balance. Thief was next to useless at low levels, which is why they tried to make getting through those levels a breeze.

The mage was explicitly "paying his dues" at low level for the glory days of high level.

And don't get me started on the Monk.

Some people enjoy a more freeform style of gaming that has nothing to do with nostalgia and calling thier choice of rulesets clunky is no more fair than wondering why those who prefer complex rules require 800 pages or so of core material to play a game of the imagination.

And Tweet points that out.

You seem to be focused like a laser on the things he mentioned that he didn't seem to like.

But he mentions SEVERAL TIMES that he liked how fast it played.

Clearly, he isn't just saying the appeal lies in nostalgia. He's saying ease and speed of play, along with nostalgia, are both selling points for the game.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

[More from Tweet]
Added 5 July 09: For the record, the "bad stuff" I'm referring to is stuff like: too much arithmetic (5% XP bonus, copper pieces, etc.), wonky XP progression per class, too-random character creation, and poor class balance. It also has the problem that didn't get fixed until 4e: all spells are daily, which makes spellcasters play too differently from the fighters.[End quote]

This tells me that despite all the history and game design knowledge that Mr. Tweet has, he really doesn't understand old school gaming.

Spell casters play differently from fighters. This is a problem?

Oh yes! From a design perspective it sure is. At the beginning of the campaign, a player selects his character's class - if the DM doesn't enforce the roll 3d6 six times, right down the values in the order given on the character sheet and see which class you might select - and is stuck with it for the life of this character. The campaign may run a long time, but the player has no chance to correct his decision. This is an example of extremely bad design!

Of course this may be okay with some/many/legions of old school gamers but this doesn't change the design value.

 

[catsclaw227]

I agree with most of what JT said. I love AD&D too, but some of the wonky mechanics (IMHO) are just bad. At the time I was learning the game, it was all I knew, so I didn't consider whether the rules felt right or were balanced. Quite frankly, with the exception of adding in some Arduin Grimoire and Judges Guild stuff, there wasn't much else out there for me and RPGs. Sure, I tried the original Traveller a couple of years later, but all I knew when I was in 7th grade was AD&D. I didn't KNOW the rules were unbalanced or wonky.

Now, with experience, I can see how nostalgia can cloud my eyes with regards to the rules and mechanics.

I was awestruck by D&D when I first played. But, then again, it's likely I would have been awestruck by 3e or 4e if that was all knew and I was a wide-eyed young gamer.