[3.5] Giving players an even bigger reason to peek in the MM...

[EricNoah]

Well, I'm not newer or younger, but I still like the idea. One of the problems I've had since I began playing 3E is that I haven't felt as comfortable "winging it" as I did in earlier editions of the game (mostly due to inexperience with the new rules). This kind of thing makes it easier for me to open up the MM and run a monster straight out of the book, which I almost never do with the current MM. A little tweak here and there, or change the order of tactics, and voila, instant encounter.

 

[Dave Blewer]

I agree with Eric.

The tactics section in the Revised Monster Manual is a superb idea.

 

[shilsen]

I agree with Eric.

The tactics section in the Revised Monster Manual is a superb idea.

I agree. I'm almost never going to use listed tactics, but having the option to do so if short of preparation time is great. And I think it's a great resource for newbie DMs or those who aren't too tactically sound themselves.

 

[Erastus]

I was a lot more active around here when 3e was taking shape, Eric, so I know that you were 3e's first and most prolific cheerleader. Grateful for that, actually, as it brought a good gaming system to my attention that I might have otherwise overlooked. If I read your stuff correctly, one of the biggest features of 3e that you championed was the streamlining and simplification of rules.

But I've got to ask... isn't there a point where you overdo streamlining and simplification? When you start including content that 'holds your hand' as you game, doesn't that sort of diminish it?

And from your recent topic here about computer aides and number crunching, it really doesn't sound like you do a lot of plunking a monster from the books as is and using it in a game....

I also want to say that I do think it's important to have more accessible games and rules sets for gamers. It's important that the gaming companies get a bigger market, and new blood is infused into the hobby. I just don't see any of them doing anything too effective. All they're doing is selling new content to the same old gamers with the stated goals of making things friendly for new gamers. It's not working.

Looking at a recent poll here, most of us - 40% or so - started gaming from 1980-1984. The numbers go down from there rather drastically. Is releasing a new, larger set of hardcover books that sits in the back corner of a mall bookstore the way to bring in new gamers? As a kid, I remember the boxed sets - a simple, fast game with all you needed to play included in one package - that didn't intimidate newcomers, that didn't look like encyclopedias (a big downfall in an age where people buy a computer game and just install and play), that didn't hide in specialty shops, on the back shelf of the bookstore or by the cash register so that store clerks could eye you like a shoplifting weirdo. Heck, I remember finding some of this stuff in toy stores. That's what the industry needs in my opinion, something that doesn't just sit on the bookshelves with all the other books. Something that can market in other types of stores, move into other merchandising points of sale. If that's the way most of us started gaming, doesn't it make sense that it would be a good way to get the new guys to start gaming?

I like the hardcover books and the more complicated rules systems. I like having supplements that can add options to the game. Today, as an adult. But that's not how I started gaming when I was younger. It doesn't look like it is the way that a lot of other people are going to start gaming either. So who are we providing these 'ease of use' features for? After gaming for (geez!) almost 20 years, they certainly don't benefit me all that much.

This business model of trying to make more money by selling more books to the same small group of people by giving them the same product with more simplified rules doesn't make sense to me.

The streamlining and simplification of 3e were good things, it was done where it was needed. It now looks like it's going to be done everywhere, that any sophistication in the game is going to be sacrificed to the "god of marketing to the same small group of people".

Edit: I seem to have hijacked my own topic with a rant. Apologies. We now return to your scheduled program.

 

[Mark]

On these boards alone, there are thousands of questions posed every single day, in new threads and posts to older threads. If there were no questions, there would be no need to streamline. If each book (or set of books) was written for each customer, and tailored to that individual, we'd need not have this or any discussion, but we'd have a hard time gathering a group.

The point is to produce a body of work that reaches, both physically and intellectually, every possible person in the market that can be reached.

I do not think what you mean to say is that you want a more complicated game. I think you mean to say that you want a more complex game. The former need not be written well or explicitly, in fact a simple game can be quite complicated under certain conditions. The latter damned well better be well written (and revised as need be) if they want me on board.

Some of the trouble with having various sets of rules for various levels of play is that you cannot simply strip out the rules that any given player might find too complex at their level. Who knows which ones would be best? Start a thread here and I doubt you would come to a satisfactory conclusion, at least not universally. Then there is also the difficulty of slight alterations being made from level to level so that the balance and playability of the game, at all levels, is worthwhile for a consumer to purchase. Those little changes produce difficulties when someone move from one level of the game to the next, or plays with various groups at the same time that use differing levels of the rules. It is better to have a single set of rules with suggestions on which rules might be left out for less intense or less experienced players.

IMO, of course...

 

[Mordane76]

Easy Version Versus Regular Version

I think the idea of the easier version of a game has already been tried, and it didn't do too well. Although the example comes from a different genre, it is still from the same company -- Wizards originally did the "Portals" sets to Magic: The Gathering, and as I remember, they didn't do too well, from a marketing and sales standpoint.

There were Quick-Play rules when the set first came out -- they were dumbed down, but provided the basics, so that one could jump from Quick-Play to the real thing. Perhaps they'll do this again, with D&D 3.5E, but even given this possibility, I think tactics are an excellent idea, not simply from a newcomer perspective, but from a planning perspective. It gives a nice ground-floor from which to prepare encounters, especially for DMs like me, who work 40 hours a week and have classes in my off-time. It would be nice to say, "Oh, yeah! I can do this, and throw this in, and change this order of this, and then I can enhance the monster this way and include X into my tactics... Hey, that didn't take too long, and I think this will really scary the bejesus outta my players! And I can still get that report written early..."

 

[the Jester]

Erastus, I started playing dnd in 1980 and I love the idea of including tactics.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I LOVE IT!

Have you ever had your players fight a new monster for the very first time and have them run through the creature much easier than they should have only to discover later that you forgot that the creature in question had a special ability or defense that you forgot to use??

[Wow that was a long sentence!]

Anyway...

It like what some of you guys have already said. Think of it as training wheels. You can take them off whenever you want, but they will sure save you a lot of scrapes and bruises in the mean time.

I have to say that I am REALLY looking forward to the new books.

As far as worrying about players peeking in the books, I'm not worried. For one thing, their memories aren't that good. For another, they are too lazy.

 

[Erastus]

I appreciate the fact that most of you like the MM tactics. Well, not most - all. I seem to be alone here. But I think it's important to point out that it's not specifically the tactics that I don?t like, but the trend that is being established when 3rd Edition becomes 'The Fantasy Roleplaying Game with Training Wheels - with optional whicker handlebar basket and bell".

I'm really not as upset about the tactics as I am about creating RPGs that are specifically designed to hold your hand as you cross the street as the core product line.

I'm too old to have someone holding my hand when I cross the street, and not old enough to need a Boy Scout to help me.

It just seems to me that my first glance at the 'new and improved' looks like 'new and improved for those times when you just don't care enough to invest the time or thought it should require to play the game". It seems like it would be all too easy to carry this too far and use that optional handlebar basket to take the game on a ride to hell.

 

[Destil]

One thing I just realized this can do is clear up misconceptions about CR greatly. no more "Well, CR assumes the renzormath gets a suprise round" or "The CR assumes the PCs start out 60' away across open ground." With the expected, de facto standard tactics spells out right in the entry you can make a good educated guess how situational modifiers and better / worse tactics will affect EL. I may honestly even go back to a CR system for XP rather than my beloved ad hoc system.