Settings and stories the rules can't handle (or don't handle well)

[gamerprinter]

Dungeons & Dragons is a game where essentially humanoid PC's enter confined spaces and risk hand-to-hand combat with terrible monsters. It assumes a pseudo-European, faux-medieval setting.

The more you deviate from this model, the less support you will have from the published rules. With house ruling, anything is possible, but at a certain point, the house rules will become predominant. You will be playing a new game of your own creation.

I don't find this to be true at all. Dungeons and Dragons, out of the box, not changing fluff as written, probably is best themed as pseudo-Europe. But the fluff is not what makes the game, the mechanics are. Have not heard of Kara Tur, Oriental Adventures, Dark Sun, Eberron, Spelljammer - not all my favorites, but all very much D&D settings while not even close to European in feel.

D&D/Pathfinder emulates fantasy. Fantasy is anything fantastical, not just European fantasy.

The fact that D&D doesn't stimulate non-European for your games, is through some lack of creativity or understanding on your part, it has nothing to do with game.

In our last Epic campaign 3.5, though I did play a human (an undead one), there was not a standard race in the group - devas, dragon-born, illithid, half giants and a drow consisted of the entire party and it wasn't broken, the D&D rules handled it fine, even exemplary.

If you can't make it work the problem is with you, not the game. Game works fine in any genre. I've never felt that I was somehow not working with the standards of the game, having never played a European setting ever in 30 years.

YMMV, obvsiously.

GP

 

[Celebrim]

Tolkien wrote quite a bit about how magic worked that has been published since his death.

There are many important things in this world I am completely ignorant of.

There are a few trivial things which I probably have too much knowledge of.

Tolkien lore probably fits in this later category. I have publically on several occasions challenged the interpretations of leading Tolkien scholars. I have shelves filled with Tolkiens books, the collections published by Christopher, and scholarly essays on Tolkien.

Here is a decent post about it The Grey Havens - Middle-earth: Magic in Middle-earth you wont find game mechanics but he did have very strong ideas about how it worked.

To be frank, I consider your link to give a very shallow and often inaccurate treatment of magic in Tolkien's works. The only part I strongly agree with is the statement, "Yet, for all this, Tolkien used magic sparingly and for good reason; if used too much it is no longer special or supernatural." That's the actual mechanic underlying the text. The trick is to use game mechanics that create a similar effect.

Just as a for example of one of the many places the essay is wrong, "Dwarves, men, hobbits, orcs, and the other races of Middle-earth are seemingly devoid of "inherent power", and can not perform magical effects.", is in fact wrong (and is demonstratable from almost any place in the text the word 'magic' is actually used, from the opening pages of 'The Hobbit' to the discussion between Galadriel and Sam). Those races were not devoid of inherent power, but rather, the power that was native to them was largely what we would find 'mundane' and 'ordinary'. Therefore, when those races actually performed magic, we as observers don't recognize it as magic because it seems to use only the skillful application of ordinary power. But it's important to observe that from the perspective of the elves, there is nothing 'supernatural' or 'uncanny' about their 'magic' and that it is just as mundane to them as those things that are mundane to us. As far as the elves are concerned their 'magic' is only the skillful application of ordinary power.

 

[MortonStromgal]

Game works fine in any genre.

Sure... but I'm not going to pull out D&D for a Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon game when Wushu exists. Wushu does that style of play much better. Its like you can use a flat head screwdriver to remove a philips screw, but if you have a philips screwdriver already why wouldn't you use it? In your case GP I understand your group only wants flat head screws but many groups don't mind using all kinds of screws (hex, philips, whatever).

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] I wasn't trying to say that post was the best, just an example that Tolkien had a strong opinion and wrote letters about that opinion.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Magic that stock D&D doesn't handle well:

1. Magic depending on animism
2. Magic depending on channeling the life force of the caster or other beings
3. Magic depending on gathering energy from the environment
4. Magic depending on summoning/binding
5. Magic depending on narrow categories of effects
6. Slow/ritual-only magic
7. Unreliable magic
8. Wild/variable/chaotic/magic on the fly magic

Now, some D&D supplements or 3PP products have ventured into those realms, but results have been mixed at best. I still haven't seen a version of D&D that has magic that is as variable as a HERO VPP-based caster, for instance.

 

[Stoat]

I only agree with #3. Examples #1 and #2 can be run even with RAW, and there are probably cases on the board where groups actually play that way regularly.

#3 is interesting because how you feel about 'handles it well', depends really on the degree of simulation you are interested in. D&D actually does just as bad of a job of simulating melee combat as it does of simulating firearms. What really matters is how much you care. If you are a historical reenactor of Western martial arts, you may well find D&D a terrible system for what interests you. By that standard D&D doesn't handle combat with swords well either. On the other hand, if you don't care that the PC can be hit be 15 bullets and still function as if they were uninjured, than D&D can handle combat centered on firearms just fine. D&D can be made to handle firearms as well as it handles melee combat, but this perforce requires house rules because the core rules don't in fact cover firearms. But its worth noting that DMs as cannonical as Monte Cook allowed firearms in his campaign.

I'm posting when I should be working, so forgive me in advance if this doesn't make as much sense as it should.

w/r/t Point 1. I won't dispute that you can use D&D to play a ghost, vampire, Kaiju, or disembodied intelligence. I don't think the game handles these options very well, because (a) there isn't a lot in the way of rules for doing so, and (b) non-human characters tend to upset/conflict with other assumptions in the rules about how the game is to be played.

Consider the vampire -- an iconic monster that people like to play. But the D&D vampire makes a really weird PC because of its mix of powerful abilities and crippling weaknesses. On the one hand, at-will level draining gives the vampire a huge offensive advantage. Damage reduction gives it a significant defensive advantage. At-will gaseous form gives it a powerful tool for avoiding traps, sneaking past enemies, and general exploration. Put this vampire in a typical dungeon crawl, and it is nigh unstoppable.

At the same time, the vamp has critical weaknesses. Sunlight and running water destroy it. It cannot enter private buildings. It's tied to a coffin full of dirt. These weaknesses, deform the game experience. The vamp can't meet NPC's in the broad light of day. When it travels, it has to keep up with its coffin. When it dies, it can't be raised.

And the vampire is probably the closest to the human end of the spectrum from the examples I provided. Ghosts walk through dungeon walls. What monsters from the monster manual challenge Godzilla? What does a disembodied, super-intelligent alien intelligence even do (other than torment Captain Kirk)?

w/r/t Point 2. You can certainly play a game with little to no combat and little to no risk of combat. I know a number of folks around here do. But I'd point out that there aren't a lot of rules support for, call it non-adventuring play. And what rules are out there are often fairly thin and poorly developed. Or long out of print. The focus of the rules is on adventuring. A group that isn't adventuring is ignoring big chunks of the rules (character classes built for adventuring, combat and adventuring equipment in the PHB, the combat rules, combat-oriented magic, etc. etc.) They may find themselves having to create significant houserules to do what they want (frex, creating an economic system that makes sense).

w/r/t point 3. I like guns in my D&D. I've used 'em since I started playing. But guns cause at least three significant problems:

1. D&D is built for melee combat. Many monsters lack ranged attacks, which makes them particularly vulnerable to ranged weapons. Combat in a dungeon environment takes place at extremely short range, making it hard to get off more than a shot or so before melee begins.

2. For genre reasons, which are largely illogical, folks tend to overestimate the lethality of firearms while underestimating the lethality of, say, an axe to the face. In other words, folks I know do care that an enemy can survive 15 shots from a handgun even though they don't care that the same enemy can survive 15 blows from a longsword.

3. D&D generally assumes that combatants will protect themselves with heavy armor. This causes a problem with modern settings where heavy armor doesn't really exist.

 

[Stoat]

I don't find this to be true at all. Dungeons and Dragons, out of the box, not changing fluff as written, probably is best themed as pseudo-Europe. But the fluff is not what makes the game, the mechanics are. Have not heard of Kara Tur, Oriental Adventures, Dark Sun, Eberron, Spelljammer - not all my favorites, but all very much D&D settings while not even close to European in feel.

D&D/Pathfinder emulates fantasy. Fantasy is anything fantastical, not just European fantasy.

The fact that D&D doesn't stimulate non-European for your games, is through some lack of creativity or understanding on your part, it has nothing to do with game.

I almost omitted "pseudo-European, faux-medieval" from my description. I DM'd a very satisfying Spelljammer campaign that lasted about 4 years, and I've got the 4E Darksun campaign guide on my coffee table at home.

I kept "pseudo-European, faux-medieval" mostly because of D&D's reliance on heavy armor in its combat rules. The game pretty much assumes that about half the party is wearing plate armor, which I tend to associate with medieval Europe. A setting where warriors don't depend on heavy armor requires some kind of rules kludge. IMO, the more you have to kludge the rules, the less well those rules are handling things.

In our last Epic campaign 3.5, though I did play a human (an undead one), there was not a standard race in the group - devas, dragon-born, illithid, half giants and a drow consisted of the entire party and it wasn't broken, the D&D rules handled it fine, even exemplary.

I said "essentially humanoid" not "human." Dragon-born, devas, half giants are drow are essentially humanoid. They are more or less human-sized. They have two arms, two legs and a head. They lack spectacular spell-like abilities or supernatural defenses.

The illithid is closer to the line. How did you handle it's Mind Blast?

If you can't make it work the problem is with you, not the game. Game works fine in any genre. I've never felt that I was somehow not working with the standards of the game, having never played a European setting ever in 30 years.

GP

Keep in mind that I'm talking about a spectrum, not a set of absolute rules. The further you move from essentially humanoid PC's entering confined spaces and risk hand-to-hand combat with terrible monsters, the more you'll have to houserule and the more likely it is that the rules will break down.

IMO, if you have to "make it work," you're approaching an area that the game doesn't handle well. Different DM's will have different opinions about where the breaking point is.

 

[gamerprinter]

I kept "pseudo-European, faux-medieval" mostly because of D&D's reliance on heavy armor in its combat rules. The game pretty much assumes that about half the party is wearing plate armor, which I tend to associate with medieval Europe. A setting where warriors don't depend on heavy armor requires some kind of rules kludge. IMO, the more you have to kludge the rules, the less well those rules are handling things.

Actually reliance on armor is more a 'low level' thing. Higher levels rely more on your dexterity, which you lose in armor, so you drop the armor as soon as you can. So I can agree to a point.

The illithid is closer to the line. How did you handle it's Mind Blast?

The real problem was social unity, not so much its mental blast - which it would do when not in proximity of other characters. The player playing the deva was largely at odds with the illithid and my character, a death knight. In combat we worked together, out of combat we worked hard to get on each other character's nerves.

Also have to remember, that I, the player of the illithid, and a human psionicist in the party are all DMs, that switch the role every couple of months. So we weren't all there as a single party at all times.

Keep in mind that I'm talking about a spectrum, not a set of absolute rules. The further you move from essentially humanoid PC's entering confined spaces and risk hand-to-hand combat with terrible monsters, the more you'll have to houserule and the more likely it is that the rules will break down.

IMO, if you have to "make it work," you're approaching an area that the game doesn't handle well. Different DM's will have different opinions about where the breaking point is.

Perhaps I read too much into your post on my last post, sorry about that...

No, we didn't need to 'make it work', it just worked, but I understand what you're saying, and could see it as a problem to particular GM and group.

GP

 

[Stoat]

The real problem was social unity, not so much its mental blast - which it would do when not in proximity of other characters. The player playing the deva was largely at odds with the illithid and my character, a death knight. In combat we worked together, out of combat we worked hard to get on each other character's nerves.

We may be coming at the issue from different directions. If I understand the term "social unity" in your post, it's something that I take for granted in the game. In other words, if I'm playing in a game with a Mind Flayer, a Death Knight and a Hobbit, I assume the players of those PC's will find a way to justify why their characters are adventuring together. I also assume that they won't spend all their time fighting amongst themselves.

What I'm concerned about is the way that a character with an at-will area of effect attack that stuns enemies for 3d4 rounds can mulch an encounter, or the way that a character with the various immunities and vulnerabilities unique to creatures with the undead subtype interacts with run-of-the-mill foes from the Monster Manual.

Perhaps its a question of game balance. For the most part, the Monster Manuals present opponents who are geared to face PC elves, dwarves, tieflings, warforged, giff, etc. etc. -- PC's with one or two base hit die, few supernatural abilities and defenses that are limited in a fairly strict way. Allowing something like a Grey Ooze to be a PC horks things up to one degree or another.

In other words, D&D handles the roleplaying aspect of "inhuman" characters Ok, but the mechanical aspect gets more and more dodgy the further you go from the baseline described in the PHB.

 

[Voadam]

Oh, well, if you're allowed to make up new rules to that extent--yeah, you can adapt D&D to a lot of settings then. But I don't think you can say "the D&D rules can handle that setting" if homebrewing new subsystems and classes is required to make it fit!

3e D&D has a ton of rules created to handle alt magic and power situations. WotC made more than a few and the OGL meant there was an explosion of them.

For example you might check out Elements of Magic by EN Publishing for a more improvisational style of 3e magic.

Want pervasive low level magic with occasional big magics with risks and costs to casting them? Try Legends of Sorcery by RPG Objects which keeps spell levels but uses a skill roll instead of slots with different costs for failure.

WotC's Unearthed Arcana had taint magic and recharge magic and spell points that cripple most evocations and spontaneous divine casting rules.

Sword Sorcery Studios had two kinds of rituals systems in Relics and Rituals, Bad Axe Games had ley line mechanic in Heroes of High Favor Elves, and Living Imagination had a fantastic high fantasy big effects ritual system in Spellbound.

 

[Voadam]

I ran into Brandon Sanderson at Dragon*Con and played Magic with him, and afterward I picked up the first book of his Mistborn series. In it, magic comes in 10 varieties, and to use magic you have to ingest different metals, turning your stomach into a sort of alchemical forge.

That's pretty hard to work into D&D, whether we're talking 2nd, 3rd, or 4th edition.

Have you ever read a book or come up with your own setting and thought, man, D&D just doesn't have the rules for that?

Mostly it's the idea that there are only 10 things you can do:

1. Pull metal objects toward you.
2. Push metal objects away.
3. Soothe people's emotions.
4. Incite their emotions.
5. Sense other people using magic.
6. Hide your magic.
7. Make yourself physically stronger.
8. Enhance your senses.
9. See a few seconds into the future.
10. Something else I don't remember.

All these powers are limited only by how much metal you have of the appropriate sort, which I suppose could be fluffed into dailies and encounters, though theoretically you would be able to rob a metal storehouse and turn everything into at-wills.

3e sorcerers who learn only the appropriate types of spells would come pretty close. There are a ton of 3e spells.

The specific components would be different and the limit being tied to the material instead of the caster would be different.