Dandu
First Post
Astral Projection seems like an obvious candidate for loophole abuse, considering that it duplicates you and your equipment, which is surely very valuable at level 17-20.
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)
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Wicht
Hero
And how would you abuse that?
I share your curiosity.
D&D wizards (with the exceptions of 4e) basically have a spell selection with levels and parameters set by Gygax and Arneson. Those levels and parameters are not set by an external genre constraints. There is no literary tradition independent of D&D, except perhaps Dr Strange, in which wizards use fireball and lightning bolt and magic missile and fly and teleport and do all the other things that D&D wizards do.
You could change all those parameters and still have a game that was as good, or better, at emulating Tokien, or Conan, or Arthurian legends, or even The Dying Earth.
I've read the whole of REH Conan. The wizards in Concan play nothing like D&D wizards. They do not use evocation. They don't use teleport. They don't generally have access to standard action casting. They are highly vulnerable to being killed by a single weapon strike.
They use Calling (in 3E terminoloy). They open gates between worlds and bargain with entities. They don't summon simulacra of creatures in large-ish numbers for a minute or so to test for traps, open doors and take a few hits.
So are we in agreement, then, that if you wanted to get a S&S feel in you game you'd need to do more than simply play a fighter - you'd want mechanics that give fighters a certain protagonistic heft, reative to wizards, within the system?
My point about length and editions played is that, to be frank, I don't see where one poster who started playing with 2nd ed and then transitioned to 3rd ed, and from his past posting history has stated that he has very minimal exposure to non-d20 RPGing, is in a position to tell me what is or isn't the norm, over the course of the game's history, in D&D play; and on what basis he gets to tell me that my play is aberrant or a departure from the game's norms.
The style of game that I play I developed from an AD&D rulebook and a Dragon magazine article published before Ahnehnois was born.
Agreed. The contrast with smaller games like BW, HW/Q, The Dying Earth etc; and the contrast even with 4e; is pretty marked.
I understand it. I just don't particularly care for it in my own play.
To me, it is common sense to assume that the lack of an explicit statement of what playstyle it supports means the authors have not indicated what playstyle the game supports. Should I assume it supports a game surrounding farming and marketing vegetables? Where does it say that this playstyle is not supported?
Since you have never sat at my table, and never will, I doubt you are qualified to assess my DMing style. You have indicated "helpful" equals "always gives me what I want". Is that how parents behave to children? Should we assume they are at some lower level of reaction than "helpful"? A drug addict wants his fix. He does not want intervention. Which one will a "friend" or a "helpful attitude" person provide?
Allow me - this is the most I can highlight it for you - I hope you will be able to find it now.
[URL said:
I don't believe the Pope's job includes lectures on comparative religion, nor listening to someone preach Taoism. As to the job of a chamberlain:
[URL said:
To think I was previously unaware London had its own monarch, or that NYC had one until the early 1900's. You really DO learn something new every day!
Guess they must have made their diplomacy check on the guard, so who am I to prevent them bothering the Chamberlain.
Having been "Diplomacied" to a helpful attitude, he will attempt to help them. See examples above where what you want and what you need are not the same thing.
I'm not referencing character classes, and I see no indication all PC's are Nobles.
Certain mechanics are conducive to certain playstyles. That's been the topic of a large portion of this thread. If the game is modified to better suit one playstyle, and becomes less suited to another, the former will be happier and the latter less so.
I'd like to thank you for your consideration in addressing points in their context.
I really WOULD like to...
I'm not going back to count, but I'm pretty sure the "more than one minute" diplomacy rule has been mentioned WAY more times than this has.
That worked out so well that WoTC has continued their unbounded support for 4e, and have indicated no intention of updating it at any time in the foreseeable future, right? Clearly it took the gaming world by storm!
koffessentialskoff koffD&Dnextkoff
Nasty cough, that.
Let's look at objective facts:
1977 - AD&D released (over 3 years)
1989 - AD&D 2nd Ed released - 11 years later
2000 - 3e released - another 11 years later
2008 - 4e released (8 years this time)
2013/2014 - 5e to be released when, exactly? I bet it doesn't get delayed until 2016.
So which one is the shortest-lived edition, then? OD&D, I suppose, it only lasted a few years before AD&D and Basic came along.
Now, that doesn't mean one is better (look at TV runs for evidence of "good" not translating into "longevity"), but it does make it pretty clear whether "enough people" wanted 4e to make it the Golden Edition of Hasbro.
I would not disagree that D&D has become a genre unto itself.
I think those "or's" are a big deal. I do not believe you can sub in "and". Elric is also S&S, and I don't think he would mesh well with Conan, nor would any of those listed necessarily play well with one another. The more focused a game is on emulating a specific setting, genre or subgenre, the better a job it does evoking that one focused area. That does not make it more suitable for emulating anything else, however.
An S&S feel? Do you mean a Conan feel, an Elric feel or a Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser feel, to pick three seminal sources?
I also note only Leiber has more than one "player character", and even he has only two. Where are the four or five man squads that make up typical D&D parties?
Ahnehnois
First Post
And which also likely went of of print while the Berlin Wall was still up. I make no statement about and have no interest in what the norm was or was not three decades ago. This is not a thread about rpg history.
I also see no relevance in discussing non-D&D rpg threads in a D&D thread in a D&D forum.
I also see no relevance in whatever style you personally established, since we're talking about the published game and widespread contemporary practices that derived from it.
You were provided with ample quotes from people much older than me about what was explicitly written in numerous D&D sources throughout various eras regarding the issue of interest (the authority of the DM). There is not a lot of ambiguity on this issue.
Dandu
First Post
1. Grab an Luckblade.
2. Cast Astral Projection.
3. Use up the wishes.
4. Dismiss Astral Projection.
5. Repeat steps 2-4.
6. ???
7. Profit.
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ImperatorK
First Post
As long as it is a reasonable assumption, feel free. There's not much rules for marketing vegetables, unless you stretch the business rules from DMG2. Meanwhile there are rules that can be used in my playstyle.
I can assess it plenty from your posts.
No, I didn't. That's what you imply I mean, because that somehow makes me sound entitled and that for some reason is important, I guess?
Ah, this rule. I had a derp.
No, the DM can use the rule, it doesn't have to be ignored. Your point? It taking longer does not equal it not working at all.
Then what is his job? I don't think it's sitting and doing nothing.
Our Chamberlain clearly is in charge of audiences if he's the one to talk about seeing to the king.
He will take risks for them.
Kings don't talk only with nobles. And adventurers are the type of people that might as well be considered equal, if not better, than a noble in the eyes of a king.
Then how, pray tell , will balance in the game make it less suited to your playstyle? Because that's your issue, right? That by making us happier your happiness will suffer?
You are missing the point. They made it. If people didn't want it, they wouldn't make it. Simple as that. Not my fault they failed at making it balanced AND fun to play. And because they failed, they're making D&D Next so soon.
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To be frank, I think I'm better qualified than you to assess widespread contemporary practices in playing D&D in a period when I was playing, and reading the paraphenalia associated with it (eg White Dwarf, Dragon Magazine) and you were not yet, or only just, born.
Concerns about GM force go back a long way. Lewis Pulsipher discusses them (in the context of Gygaxian-style play) in the late 70s and early 80s. And concerns about the integration between world-building and PC thematic heft go back a long way (they are in play in an excellent article on alignment in Dragon 101, "For King and Country").
As for the relevance of other RPGs - where do you think 3E got its skill system from? Monte Cook was the lead editor for Rolemaster, and a frequent contributor to Rolemaster material. Iron Crown Enterprises, which publishes Rolemaster, was in the 80s the second-biggest RPG publisher, I think. (Due to its Middle Earth licence.) The other major fantasy RPG of the time, RuneQuest, was also a skill-based system.
You are a frequent advocate of WP/VP mechanics. The first version of those mechanics was published, in White Dwarf, in the very early 80s: the article is called "How to Lose Hit Points and Survive", by Roger Musson. It was not written in a vacuum. The popularity of other games which did not rely on hp attrition for combat, and concerns about "realism" and simulation and so on, were all important factors back then just as they are now.
3E has a history, and sits on a trajectory, in broader trends of game design, and any discussion of how it was designed, and how it might be played, which disregards that context, is likely to be attenuated.
And I gave extensive replies explaining my reading of those passages. Particularly that - in my view - they are concernred primarily with GM authority over backstory and over PC fictional positioning as a factor in scene-framing and therefore a contribution to action resolution. I wouldn't go so far as to say that [MENTION=6701124]Cadence[/MENTION] agreed with me on that, but he(?) didn't seem to think me obviously wrong, either.
There are many things a GM can have authority over. Except in relation to fudging dice rolls, which itself he hedged around wtih many qualifications, Gygax does not in my view suggest that the GM has authority over outcomes.
Of the genre credibility test. Not of outcomes. Not of "events that occur in the gameworld".
If you fail to distinguish between authority over backstory (and how that can be distributed among participants), authority over scene framing (and how that can be distributed among participants), authority over permissibility of action declaration (and how that can be distributed among participants), authority over oucome (and how that can be distributed among participants), etc, you won't make much progress in analysing the variable dynamics of RPG play.
To look at the Chamberlain, for instance: there is a huge difference, in play experience, between a game in which the GM responds to the player's declaratin of a Diplomacy check "The Chamberlain doesn't listen to you, and instead storms off", and in which the GM responds "The Chamberlain has his fingers in his ears, so I don't think he'll be able to hear you. So can you tell me more about what your guy is doing?".
The first approach involves the GM specifying the content of the shared fiction. The second involves the GM helping achieve clarity on exactly what it is that a player is suggesting introducing into the shared fiction. The first suggests closure. The second suggests invitation. For many RPGers, at least, these differences are a big deal.
I've certainly seen it argued that 3E does support this, through its rules for Craft and Profession skills. I personally don't agree - I think those skills are, except in the most marginal instances of play, mere colour masquerading as elements of PC build - but I think I'm in a minority in this respect.
Just to add to what [MENTION=6695799]ImperatorK[/MENTION] said - that doesn't mean that the issues it addressed were of little concern to most people. What RPGs have sold more than 4e? Only some other versions of D&D - 1st ed AD&D, 3E/PF, perhaps B/X, perhaps 2nd ed AD&D. As a game it's hardly been a marginal presence in the history of RPGing.
Jackinthegreen
Explorer
Sometimes they're nicely tied in color such as the Exotic Weapon Master requiring a few ranks of Craft: Weaponsmithing. Other times, however, they can directly tie in to a character's concept. The Profession (Sailor) skill is detailed quite well in Stormwrack and has various rules with regards to crewing or captaining a ship, which some prestige classes like the Dread Pirate (CAd) and Scarlet Corsair (Storm) are designed around.
But I do agree that craft and profession are generally more color than actual mechanics meant to be focused on.
