D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[EzekielRaiden]

I mean… Bargle and Aleena exist for a reason.

I suppose? I literally never played that adventure and only barely know the context so that's not exactly the best example for me.

 

[niklinna]

Blades in the Dark GM Finally Knows How to Play after Reading the Book 83 Times - The Only Edition

Gabriela Borba happily announced that she finally plays Blades in the Dark properly after reading the rulebook for the 83rd time. “When I first started running the game, I used to have issues understanding basic mechanics like stress and flashbacks, and everyone said I should read the rulebook...

the-only-edition.com

There's a fair bit of tangy truth to that article. Good thing I like tangy! Blades is probably my favorite system at the moment.

<Gets out rulebook to read it again.>

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

TLDR: No edition has an expiration date.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I suppose? I literally never played that adventure and only barely know the context so that's not exactly the best example for me.

It was a kind of sample adventure to play by yourself with the purpose of walking you through the basics of the game. This was in the Red Box by Mentzer, which came out in like 83 or 84.

It was designed specifically to help people learn the game.

 

[gorice]

Instead of responding to a bunch of stuff in pedantic detail, I'd like to try and clarify something. When I mention 'structures' or 'procedures', I'm thinking about recurrent processes that 'loop'. Play loops, right?

So, yes, I as a DM need to make a call about how long it takes for fire to burn through a rope bridge the PCs are standing on, or whether someone can jump across a chasm while wearing soaking wet armour. These kinds of rulings are completely normal in D&D, and I'm pretty comfortable making them, because they don't come up too often, and repeat even less.

(though, for example, some kind of flexible rule for counting down until something burns/explodes/whatever would be lovely, and indeed this is something I have a little houserule for).

The real difficulty comes from the stuff that repeats. If you're doing a piracy campaign, you're going to want to have some idea about how to handle naval battles and swashbuckling -- the odd judement call isn't going to cut it. The mental overhead is too much, and pretty soon you'll rule youself into a corner.

The other problem is: as a DM or GM, I want my players to be able to make informed choices about tactics, and meaningful decisions about what they do with their characters. If they're in a naval battle, they need to have some idea of their odds against that man-o'-war, and the risks involved in fighting it. If I'm winging everything, I have much less ability to provide that information.

 

[pemerton]

It's a longstanding thing in the industry, though. Like, from the very early days. I must say it is always nice to see a rulebook at least try.

In the context of D&D, I think it began with AD&D 2nd ed. The classic versions of the game (B/X, OD&D, Gygax's AD&D) set out procedures for play - in my parentheses I think they're roughly in order from clearest to least clear (though OD&D's combat resolution rules are notoriously hard to parse). They tell the GM how to build dungeons - map and key - and then how to administer the exploration process. AD&D has lots of stuff beyond that too, though obscurity of subject matter also tends to correlate to obscurity of rules.

With the focus of play moving from that classic exploration-type play to more "living, breathing world" and/or "story"-focused play, the idea of setting out procedures of play seems to have been left behind.

 

[Manbearcat]

Can I ask what in the world jargon "Chinese Room" is?

Can I ask why "Chinese Room" isn't disqualified from conversation because its (a) jargon and (b) appears to be about the most unintuitive piece of jargon ever introduced into a TTRPG discussion unless its about someone in China...being in a room...playing a TTRPG? I mean I know something like GM Force is utterly terrible (being exactly what it sounds like and all)...but how is Chinese Room somehow helpful to conversation in any way? How is it not a giant barrier to entry piece of jargon that is inherently exclusionary (isn't that the typical refrain?)?

I anticipate this thread being awash with first principle-driven decrying of "Chinese Room" this time tomorrow.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's a longstanding thing in the industry, though. Like, from the very early days. I must say it is always nice to see a rulebook at least try.

Sorta, kinda. I mean, D&D was really just intended as a sort of 'crib sheet' of stuff you would want to use to run a 'Fantasy Miniatures Campaign' be gluing together Chainmail fantasy supplement and AH Survival. At most it kinda set up a framework (classes, alignments, dungeons), and pointed in a basic genre direction, possibly by accident. I don't really recall much that said "and here's how you play" except maybe in the prefacing material a bit. Even that was pretty vague. Considering when we read it we had never heard of RPGs it was actually pretty hard and fast NOT explaining play! This is really the great gift of J. Eric Holmes Basic rules, they actually explain what the heck D&D IS. Unless you got it word-of-mouth direct from Garry and Co that was the only way you would ever get that (and we literally learned from a guy that learned from a guy that learned from Garry). Even then when I read Holmes Basic it was like "Oh, yeah, there's some things I never really got before..."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It was a kind of sample adventure to play by yourself with the purpose of walking you through the basics of the game. This was in the Red Box by Mentzer, which came out in like 83 or 84.

It was designed specifically to help people learn the game.

Alright. Am I at a disadvantage for learning due to having learned from the books (and websites like the d20 SRD) rather than from Mentzer's semi-solo intro adventure?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Alright. Am I at a disadvantage for learning due to having learned from the books (and websites like the d20 SRD) rather than from Mentzer's semi-solo intro adventure?

Nope!

I was using that example to agree with your point that teaching the game is at least one point of the books.