Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Toric_Arthendain" data-source="post: 5847809" data-attributes="member: 9833">For you maybe "rules silence" is a problem.  This is not necessarily the case for everyone, just the same as "rules for everything" is a problem for me but not necessarily everyone.Dozens of pages of house rules?  If I felt I had to house rule 3.5 like that, I would have dumped the system LONG ago.  I don't even have dozens of pages of house rules for 1e, I have three.  All I need at the moment, although I reserve the right to add to them in the future.Of course it doesn't but players develop certain expectations and many players have fallen into this practice, even veterans.  Call it growing lazy or whatever.  And I don't let my players get away with that.  But it gets tedious to have to remind them over and over.You can sugar coat it any way you want.  Players are still going to say, "I search the room" and roll a d20.  What real difference does it make if they say "I search the desk" and then roll a d20?  If something is hidden behind a shield hanging from the wall, players expect to be told about it if the make their Search DC.  Look at the skill description.  It tells what DCs are needed to accomplish certain tasks.  In 1e, I am not telling the players about what is behind the shield on the wall unless they actually say they check it.  In 3.5, the rules assumption is that I will inform the players about what is behind the shield if they meet or exceed the DC.  Most descriptions in 3.5 modules say some variation of this, "If the PCs succeed at a DC25 Search check, they will discover the ruby hidden under a loose floorboard under the bed".  Sure you can make them specifically say they are searching under the bed.  But then you start to bog down the game with too many skill rolls.  Each player could be making multiple Search rolls in every room.  And if a published module states that a DC# Search check will discover something hidden somewhere in the room, but you expect the players to still tell you they are searching that specific spot to even get a shot at rolling, why even have the skill?  If a ruby is hidden under a loose floorboard and the PC looks under the bed and sees the loose floorboard, why does he still have to roll?  And if he doesn't have to roll, why have the Search skill at all?  Plenty of players expect that the blanket statement of searching a room and a single Search check is good enough and I believe the rules can be interpreted as supporting this style of play.  And unless you want too many checks slowing down the game, that is probably how many DMs handle it.Wow, making a few assumptions about me and my game?  I didn't lose control of my 3e game.  And I can't stress enough that it has EVERYTHING to do with system for me.  3e is rules intense.  As the levels go by, everything slows down.  Combat for a mid to high level group can take hours.  Players deciding on what spells they are memorizing or praying for takes awhile.  Rules are spread out across many different books.  Prep time takes far longer for 3e than 1e.  Stat blocks for monsters and bad guys are ridiculously long.  Unless you have a fantastic memory, you will without a doubt have to look up skill descriptions, feat descriptions, spell descriptions, power descriptions, etc.  PCs and enemies have outrageous bonuses, especially at mid to high levels.  I believe the balance that many love about 3e begins to fall apart at higher levels.  Can you play minimalist 3e?  Maybe with some effort.  But from experience, I absolutely grew to hate 3e for all the reason stated above.  Again, this is my perception and experience.  Others certainly, yourself included, might not feel this way.Sounds like those people lost control of their group, to use what you accused me of earlier.  I don't set a six second limit.  I believe in allowing the players a little bit more time than that to make a decision.  And in 1e, there are only so many actions that are valid so that goes fairly quickly.  The game bogged down for me, not with the time it takes the players to decide on an action, but with what I stated above.  Long combats, fiddly bonuses from feats, skills, powers and spells, tons of rules scattered across huge rulebooks.  I don't have rules lawyers in my game.  No one questions a judgement I make until after the game and even then they are respectful about it.Also, the 1e DMG is my favorite RPG rulebook ever written.  YMMV, of course.I totally disagree with all of that.  1e is grittier in my opinion and IS an attribute of the rules and has little to do with culture at the table.  Characters in 3e with their outrageous bonuses to hit and their feats and big damage bonuses are more like superheros in a fantasy setting, again in my opinion.  In every game I ever ran or played in 1e, play balance certainly didn't break in favor of the players.Again, I guess I can agree to disagree here.  A 1st level character in 1e is far more frail than a 1st level character in 3e, especially if the DM runs it by the book and doesn't give full hit points at 1st level.  A fighter in 3e has 10 hp at level 1 and possibly more with a decent Con.  The same fighter in 1e has 1-10 +Con by the book.  The 3e fighter also likely has bonuses to hit and damage from high strength whereas the 1e fighter might not because ability score bonuses don't kick in until the scores are 15+.  So a 3e fighter with 15 Str has a +2 to hit and damage from Strength.  A 1e fighter with a 15 Str has no bonus to hit or damage from Strength.  This doesn't even count Power Attack and feats that offer up even more bonuses.  Same with other classes.  Mage in 3e gets bonus spells from high Intelligence.  By the book in 1e, the Magic User gets 1 first level spell regardless of Intelligence.  There are plenty of challenges for higher level 1e PCs.  That said, 1e was not really meant to go much past level 12 and the experience point totals needed to reach that high of a level were large enough that it took quite awhile to get there, unlike the faster leveling in 3e.  By level 12 in 1e, many characters were retired and new campaigns were started.  Could you go past that?  Sure.  Was it more difficult to find challenges for the PCs?  Yes, but they are there.Go back and read my post.  I offered no viewpoints on your game other than mentioning a contradiction I though I had detected in one of your posts and that really had nothing to do with your game but how you perceived the rules.  I admit to being unfamiliar with your game.  All of my comments pretty much centered on my own game and my viewpoints on 1e and 3e.  Again, take a look at my one other post here.  It all centered around my feelings about the two editions.  Those comments were made to express my opinions about 1e and 3e, not make judgements about your DM style or your game.  I wouldn't presume to tell someone what would be best for their own game.  In nearly all cases, I said "I think" or "I expect" or "I don't have to worry about that".  I never said "I think you should do it this way" or "You have to worry about that".That being said, I wonder what your expectations were when starting this thread?  You started a thread on a messageboard where you pretty much said that 1e is a bad game.  Were you not expecting that there might be a few who would post why they like 1e and dislike 3e?  If that was your expectation, you probably shouldn't have started the thread in the first place.I'm not sure why you felt the need to attack me with comments stating your belief that I lost control of my group.  I thought I was pretty polite to you in my initial post in this thread.  I didn't bash you or how you run a D&D game.  I simply presented my own opinion on 1e and 3e.  I politely mentioned a contradiction in a comment you had made.  At no time did I attack you, your game, your DM style or any of that.  All of my positive comments about 1e and negative comments about 3e were made from MY perspective, not with the assumption that everyone would agree with me.As I said in my last post, and Crothian said earlier, 1e is not for everyone.  I accept that just like I accept that 3e is not for everyone.  But plenty of people love 1e and believe it is a good system.  You seem to be saying that the game is bad and you are shocked anyone likes it or that those of us that do like it just don't get it.  There are plenty of fans of 1e that would disagree with much of what you have said about it here.  Just like there are plenty of 3e fans that would disagree with what I have said about it here.  I accept that.  I'm not even saying that 3e is a bad system, it just isn't for me anymore.  I might even play it in the future if I had a chance to join a game.  But I will never DM it again.  I have my game of choice.Is 1e perfect?  No.  But it comes very close FOR ME.</blockquote>

Verification