The Problem with 21st century D&D (and a solution! Sort of)

[giant.robot]

Let me turn it around. What would a basic D&D game teach potential new players that they cannot learn from a host of other sources?

I think this is one of the better points made in the thread (no offense to anyone else). A player that is new to pen and paper RPGs in 2011 likely has way more experience with RPGs than their 1981 counterpart. It's unlikely that they haven't played some CRPG or CCG before picking up a D&D book. An RPG rule book printed today doesn't need to spend a whole chapter explaining the concept of role playing games.

However I think there's definitely a place for a "Basic Game". I'm in partial agreement with Mercurius about the design of "21st century" games. Even if the core concepts of the "21st century" games are relatively simple they kind of throw new players into the deep end. There's no shallow end of the D&D pool anymore. The new Red Box and the rest of Essentials go half way there but I still feel they are a lot for new players to handle. A "Basic Game" isn't so much about teaching players about RPGs in general but teaching them pen and paper D&D specifically.

I think the Red Box rules should have started with the absolute D&D basics closer to the Microlite20 rules. Players could choose from three classes: Fighter, Cleric, and Mage. They would only have three ability scores (STR, DEX, INT), low HP (Fighter 6, Cleric 5, Mage 4), and a single defense value with a slight bonus if they can wear armor. Each class would only have two powers (probably an attack and utility) that would do enough damage to kill a minion but take a few successful hits to beat a bigger monster. Most of the monsters would be minions with attacks on them just keying off of ability scores. Traps and the like would also just use ability modifiers.

This would have put the scale of the game much closer to that of the Mentzer Red Box but also provide an introduction to the mechanics of the game without overwhelming new players. When they decide they want more options they can pick up Heroes of the Forgotten Lands and build a full character with all of the options. The "Basic Game" is forward compatible with the full game but doesn't throw new players in the deep end.

I think part of the attraction of many of the OSR games is they have rules that are easy to explain to new players. You get the open ended and free-form nature of an RPG without the sprawling list of rules. I've introduced a lot of people to RPGs over the years and something almost universal is the fear in people's eyes when you pull out a rulebook the size of a college textbook. It's hard to convince someone the game is actually fun when it looks like you're giving them a thesis paper to write. It doesn't help that the character sheets look like IRS forms.

A "Basic Game" would get people familiar with the absolute core concepts of the game and sitting down with some friends and playing. They then get to add complexity at their own pace rather than at whatever pace the game designers thought was appropriate.

 

[Hussar]

But, Giant.robot, your example is actually even simpler than Mentzer basic was. Mentzer basic had 6 stats, eight classes (?), six or seven saving throw categories and very quickly more than two powers.

Plus, the Basic character wasn't that weak either. A 1st level fighter could handle a 2 HD creature most of the time. A 1st level fighter could easily have an AC 2 (plate and shield was well within reach at chargen) meaning that 1 HD or less creatures only hit him about 10% of the time whereas he was hitting about 50%.

I'm all for rules light, but, this is stripping the game down way further than it needs to be.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Again, I really don't understand this call for a stripped down Basic game. In 1980 (ish) when Basic D&D was getting going, that was pretty much the only entry point into RPG's. There just weren't anything else that really encapsulated what you were doing when playing an RPG - the basic concept of a game that you never really win and all the players should work together was a huge paradigm shift.

Today, it's old hat. There are any number of cooperative video and board games. There's a list as long as my arm for people of virtually any age starting at about 5 years old.

Why do we need a stripped down D&D to induct people into RPG's? There's a bajillion ways to teach the basics of D&D - creating characters, playing a role, exploring a fictional setting, combat, mechanics, whatever - that don't need a boxed set to do.

Thirty years ago, if you told someone you played an RPG, they'd have no idea what you were talking about. Today, I can tell my 20 year old Japanese students that I play an RPG and, while they might jump to the idea of Japanese JRPG computer games, they absolutely have the basics down.

IMO, the point of Basic D&D back in the day was to introduce very new concepts to young players. Today, those concepts are present in many, many games they play now.

Let me turn it around. What would a basic D&D game teach potential new players that they cannot learn from a host of other sources?

A method of teaching is not the end of utility for a basic game. It might be this attitude that made the last few basic sets such failures.

Have you ever gamed with a casual gamer who loved to play but just never cared to learn all the rules? There are people who love the way an rpg plays but just never feels like reading 300+ pages of rules in order to do so.

Hardcore gamers such as those here on ENW (myself included) can sometimes forget that the vast majority of people do not as a matter of course spend as much of their time as we do on this hobby.

A basic light game offers not only introduction, but a sustained simple avenue for continuing to enjoy rpgs without a great investment of either time or money.

Some casual gamers might end up wanting more involvement with the hobby after playing the basic game for a time. Others may never be interested enough in gaming to want to read a PHB. The thing to remember is that a hardcore gamer is easier to create from a happy sustained casual gamer than from the joe blow on the street no matter how much either of them happen to know about rpgs from pop culture.

I think part of the attraction of many of the OSR games is they have rules that are easy to explain to new players. You get the open ended and free-form nature of an RPG without the sprawling list of rules. I've introduced a lot of people to RPGs over the years and something almost universal is the fear in people's eyes when you pull out a rulebook the size of a college textbook. It's hard to convince someone the game is actually fun when it looks like you're giving them a thesis paper to write. It doesn't help that the character sheets look like IRS forms.

A "Basic Game" would get people familiar with the absolute core concepts of the game and sitting down with some friends and playing. They then get to add complexity at their own pace rather than at whatever pace the game designers thought was appropriate.

Precisely. I don't think a basic game needs to be as stripped down as the one you outlined but you certainly get the concept.

 

[Glade Riven]

To be fair Transbot9, that was more to do with some very questionable business practices than any lack in the 2e system. It wasn't that 2e players were dying on the vine, it's that TSR was run by people who had the business sense of concussed gerbils.

There is also a lot of nostalgia clouding one's vision. For a comparative example, I've met people who insist that the original Transformers show is brilliant and best-thing-ever, and all new Transformer shows are crap. The reality is that the original Transformers show was poorly written and made really cheaply. The production quality for the more recent Transformers shows have improved quite a bit in quality, and so has the writing.

I've noticed that while it has been admitted that TSR produced poor quality and unwanted products, these threads pan out the TSR (and Gygax) gold but leave the waste material behind when it comes to newer editions. A lot of talk in this thread is about house-rules or ignoring rules you don't like that were put there for a reason or whatever. You can do that in 3.5, 4e, and Pathfinder. When I was introduced to 3.5, I didn't read through all the rules and the entire 3.5 PHB. I skimmed through, found something that sounded interesting to play, and learned how things worked at the table. That's how other new players in my last group got started.

We got hooked on a character concept, and then just started to play. Other D&Ders were there to show us the ropes. Sometimes rules got ignored, but the longer we gamed, the more we started sticking to the rules. As I understand it, that's how it's happened for decades. Most people didn't pick up a basic box at a toy store - someone introduced them to the hobby and they were shown the ropes.

 

[BryonD]

There is also a lot of nostalgia clouding one's vision.

Honestly, both sides of this are correct.
By the mid to late 90s D&D had lost a ton of respect and was more and more seen as a clunky hodge podge that had not kept up with the times. So you are right.

But, it was still D&D and it was living on a ton of legacy and momentum. The cash flow was there. Despite the fact that other games had really moved the bar up, a competent business could have easily survived on the brand name alone. So Hussar is right.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The first time I DMed 2e, I screwed up saving throw rules hardcore. I think I reversed them... while looking up the tables. (3.x had easier saving throw rules; there's only three, they go up, they follow an obvious scale...) While 2e saving throws weren't that complicated, they were a barrier to a newbie.

2e had fewer rules, but I wouldn't say it was less complex.

 

[pemerton]

Why do we need a stripped down D&D to induct people into RPG's?

<snip>

What would a basic D&D game teach potential new players that they cannot learn from a host of other sources?

I think there's definitely a place for a "Basic Game". I'm in partial agreement with Mercurius about the design of "21st century" games. Even if the core concepts of the "21st century" games are relatively simple they kind of throw new players into the deep end.

<snip>

I've introduced a lot of people to RPGs over the years and something almost universal is the fear in people's eyes when you pull out a rulebook the size of a college textbook. It's hard to convince someone the game is actually fun when it looks like you're giving them a thesis paper to write. It doesn't help that the character sheets look like IRS forms.

A "Basic Game" would get people familiar with the absolute core concepts of the game and sitting down with some friends and playing. They then get to add complexity at their own pace rather than at whatever pace the game designers thought was appropriate.

A method of teaching is not the end of utility for a basic game.

<snip>

A basic light game offers not only introduction, but a sustained simple avenue for continuing to enjoy rpgs without a great investment of either time or money.

Agreeing with Hussar, a basic game is not needed to teach concepts. So I in part disagree with giant.robot - a basic game isn't needed to get people familiar with absolutely core concepts. But I agree with giant.robot in a different respect - D&D, especially in its current versions, presupposes players who are willing to engage with incredibly complex rules that are also mathematically heavy (in the same way that accounting is mathematically heavily, wheras keeping a diary is not) and presuppose the spreadsheet as the basis model of presenting information.

I therefore think EW is right. A good basic game wouldn't primarily be a teaching tool. It would be an RPG that was (i) fun to play, but (ii) didn't presuppose that its players all longed to be accountants in their next lives.

Basic D&D succeeded in being such a game, because it is so simple in the required maths. It still presupposes exploration and combat as the focus of play, however, and I think Hussar was right when he suggested upthread that computer gaming will dominate this sort of market.

HeroWars/Quest is a completely different attempt at a maths-lite game, which focuses on something other than exploration and combat, and therefore isn't easily replicated by a computer game, but is obviously lacking in the market presence that would enable it to lead a recovery in RPGing.

The notion that 4Essentials is in any way an introductory game, or a game that would lure new (and non-accountant) players to RPG, I think is pretty implausible. I assume that WotC see Essentials as selling to lapsed RPGers, and or to the children of RPGers, and or to the handful of young would-be accountants who haven't yet discovered that they can pursue their occupation with much more interesting flavour text!

 

[OSEZNO]

When people tell me 4E, specifically, is complicated or complex, I kind of get the urge to scoff.

I've played a game of Pathfinder, read books for other game systems, watched previous editions of D&D played...

I don't even want to dip my feet in, I am so baffled by them.
In fact, that was what kept me out of table top gaming until 4E.

 

[Glade Riven]

So a basic game, rules "light" to give people a general feel for D&D...wait, isn't this what the board games do?

 

[Mercurius]

So a basic game, rules "light" to give people a general feel for D&D...wait, isn't this what the board games do?

Not really, or at least they only give a feel for one (albeit major) aspect of the game: tactical combat and, I would think, some semblance of a dungeon-crawl. But that is nothing new and nothing that can't be experienced with other board games or computer games.

What is lacking is the play of imagination - and that, imo, is what makes RPGs special. A lighter version of D&D would allow people to experience the play of imagination D&D-style without the density of numbers and statistics.

Now I would guess that the vast majority of long-term D&D players like numbers and statistics and aren't intimidated by them. But for those of us with non-gamer spouses and friends, we know that there are plenty of folks out there that would enjoy the imagination part if they didn't have to wade through so much nerdage.