D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[The Firebird]

I was very directly given an example in another thread happening right now, of a near-50% lethality rate on a group's second adventure. This was portrayed as tame. From a person who has--very specifically--made the argument that this should be the default, and that anyone, such as me, who might not enjoy that isn't really any loss if they stop playing.

I'm not exaggerating anything.

I believe someone else said that in a different thread, but it would be a mistake to read that as the essence of the OSR.

 

[James Gasik]

Magic items are under the the pervue of the DM, and last I checked you are not guaranteed magic items in TSR D&D. I might go major periods of time without getting a usable magic item.

Guaranteed? No. But if you play a lot of TSR-era adventures (modules, supplements, and Dungeon), you're going to have so many +1 swords, shields, and rings of protection you won't know what to do with them all! My current 5e game is based on me converting a lot of old favorites, and even with me massively reducing the amount, there's still a lot of swag! It really made for quite a bit of whiplash back in they day- I'd have other DM's claim that magic items were super rare and you should be lucky to have a +1 knife at level 6...and then I ran Terrible Trouble in Tragidore (it came with my DM screen, it must be a good starting adventure, right? LOL) and by the end, the characters were dripping with loot!

"Oh well, I mean, you're supposed to modify printed adventures", they told me. And I was left scratching my head. "Where the heck does it say that?!".

I mean, heck, Fighter's Challenge, supposedly a solo adventure for levels 2-4, offers up a +3 (!) weapon about 2/3 of the way in! I mean, granted, it's a warhammer, which is a lousy weapon in AD&D, so, yeah. But still!

Let's just say that you got a lot of mixed signals about magic item rarity in those days from the publishers.

 

[LordBP]

"Hardcore" difficulty is absolutely a thing, and the people who love that sort of thing L O V E it, unreservedly. But such people are also a distinct minority. Video games demonstrate this handily. E.g. BG3, less than 10% of players have even attempted Honor Mode, and of those who have, only ~10% have succeeded at it. Are you wiling to bet the farm that D&D-in-general is somehow radically different? Or is it much more likely that you'd lose 90% of players just from them bouncing off the brutal difficulty and then a further 90% of the remainder from burning out trying to endure it?

As someone who only plays hardcore modes on video games, the burnout percentage is probably a bit high as those that actually play the mode regularly are pretty hard headed and will keep making new attempts over and over until they succeed or a new game comes out with the same mode that they want to try.

The newcomers or casual players that have seen or heard about hardcore mode, and want to try it will have a higher percentage, but usually don't quit at a 90% rate unless they aren't good enough to play that mode. They tend not to play as much, so may never beat the mode.

There is a subset of the hardcore players that play an even harder mode which is self-found and solo self-found. They only use items that they found in game (no trading) and in the case of solo self-found, they only play by themselves (no help/grouping). They are usually around 10% total of the hardcore players, but may be higher at times when the hardcore players get bored and want something more difficult.

 

[Remathilis]

Guaranteed? No. But if you play a lot of TSR-era adventures (modules, supplements, and Dungeon), you're going to have so many +1 swords, shields, and rings of protection you won't know what to do with them all! My current 5e game is based on me converting a lot of old favorites, and even with me massively reducing the amount, there's still a lot of swag! It really made for quite a bit of whiplash back in they day- I'd have other DM's claim that magic items were super rare and you should be lucky to have a +1 knife at level 6...and then I ran Terrible Trouble in Tragidore (it came with my DM screen, it must be a good starting adventure, right? LOL) and by the end, the characters were dripping with loot!

"Oh well, I mean, you're supposed to modify printed adventures", they told me. And I was left scratching my head. "Where the heck does it say that?!".

I mean, heck, Fighter's Challenge, supposedly a solo adventure for levels 2-4, offers up a +3 (!) weapon about 2/3 of the way in! I mean, granted, it's a warhammer, which is a lousy weapon in AD&D, so, yeah. But still!

Let's just say that you got a lot of mixed signals about magic item rarity in those days from the publishers.

I also think it's a copout to call magic items part of the level up process. Getting a +1 sword isn't the same as getting a new spell level. Especially since there is no guarantee I will get a +1 sword on one of those levels where my class does nothing but give HP and a Thac0 drop. There is no guarantee I will get one at all. I also distinctly recall part of the OS movement's credo that "PCs are not their magic items" (made in reaction to wealth per level and magic items shops) but like most credos, it gets forgotten when it's most convenient.

 

[FrozenNorth]

You appear to be ignoring player buy in as a factor. It is much harder to convince many players to take an easier, more powerful on the PC-side game and make it harder than the reverse, because IMO the former almost always takes power away from the PCs in some way, and players IME hate having anything taken away from them that the rules say they get to have. Its the same reason I prefer optional rules be a thing explicitly, because when something is labeled optional it means you don't always get to have it, but more many players IME, not having that label means you do.

You don’t have to remove anything to challenge players, just ramp up the difficulty. Setting the monsters both in number and difficulty has always been 100% within the DM’s purview.

You’re ignoring the fact that in an less challenging system, you still start at low levels and monsters exist that are designed to challenge higher level PCs, so it is easy to substitute stronger monsters.

 

[TiQuinn]

I also think it's a copout to call magic items part of the level up process. Getting a +1 sword isn't the same as getting a new spell level. Especially since there is no guarantee I will get a +1 sword on one of those levels where my class does nothing but give HP and a Thac0 drop. There is no guarantee I will get one at all. I also distinctly recall part of the OS movement's credo that "PCs are not their magic items" (made in reaction to wealth per level and magic items shops) but like most credos, it gets forgotten when it's most convenient.

The credos are a retrofit against the early AD&D/BX rules. A modern NSR game has much more of a chance of aligning to those tenets. And to be fair, wizards didn’t automatically get all their new spells - they had a % chance to learn them.

 

[Remathilis]

The credos are a retrofit against the early AD&D/BX rules. A modern NSR game has much more of a chance of aligning to those tenets. And to be fair, wizards didn’t automatically get all their new spells - they had a % chance to learn them.

I considered how actual access to spells was based on finding them (unless you were a cleric). I didn't want to muddy up the point with technicalities. The rules did state you gained a free spell of a new spell level when you became able to cast that level, but like all rules of the era, it was often missed or ignored. That said, I think the odds that a magic user would have access to 3rd or 4th level spell slots but have no 3rd or 4th level spells was very rare.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was very directly given an example in another thread happening right now, of a near-50% lethality rate on a group's second adventure. This was portrayed as tame. From a person who has--very specifically--made the argument that this should be the default, and that anyone, such as me, who might not enjoy that isn't really any loss if they stop playing.

I'm not exaggerating anything.

Ok, do you think you should continuing playing a game like that, where you very obviously wouldn't be happy? It sounds to be me like another game would suit you better, and fortunately there are a lot of options out there. I've never agreed with your claim that WotC needs fix their game to suit everyone because it's near impossible to play anything else. It is challenging to be sure, and I dearly wish WotC was a smaller gorilla, but you can still play other games. Heck, @Lanefan doesn't play WotC's game, and neither do I. Both of us, however, and many others, have to deal with the effect WotC's dominance has on the hobby.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You don’t have to remove anything to challenge players, just ramp up the difficulty. Setting the monsters both in number and difficulty has always been 100% within the DM’s purview.

You’re ignoring the fact that in an less challenging system, you still start at low levels and monsters exist that are designed to challenge higher level PCs, so it is easy to substitute stronger monsters.

And that can work, provided you don't have an issue with superhero PCs (which they remain in principle regardless of high you crank the numbers in modern official D&D). But what if that is a problem for you?

 

[AlViking]

And that can work, provided you don't have an issue with superhero PCs (which they remain in principle regardless of high you crank the numbers in modern official D&D. But what if that is a problem for you?

If a GM in any game is having issues that other GMs are not I would suggest that they ask for advice on what they need to do differently. They then need to heed that advice or at least attempt to do so along with trying different options until they find something that does work. Nothing I do is particularly out of the ordinary and it's worked most of the time for a wide variety of groups and levels.