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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 7665196" data-attributes="member: 6680772">The Sage may have commented on it in some issue of Dragon waaay back when, but I'm not sure of any official ruling.  I think, however, what we have here is an artifact of entry via Basic.  OD&D treats PCs as barely a step up from a wargame piece.  It's not interested in modeling a world through game mechanics.  Particularly in the sense of combat, this is simply resolved, using either Chainmail or the alternate system.  All attacks do the same damage: 1d6, so it doesn't really matter whether your magic-user has a dagger or a sword.  His (melee) effectiveness is dependent on his Level and to-hit roll matrix, not what weapon he's using.  Of course, over time the rules start to get more and more detailed.  Once you introduce weapon distinctiveness with variant damage and speed factors, you have to start looking at what kind of penalties you impose for someone using weapons outside those allowed for their class.  One of Gygax's tablemates has phrased the attitude of the time as, "Whatever isn't explicitly forbidden is permitted."  It's explicitly forbidden for magic-users to become proficient with a sword.  However, a magic-user picking up a dropped sword and swinging it at encroaching enemies is something that might be considered a not-uncommon outcome in the course of the game.  What happens when a PC does that?  In AD&D's case, I believe the -5 penalty was made available.  AD&D was about a mechanical system for every eventuality.But D&D (as oppposed to AD&D) didn't go that route.  For one thing, it retained the universal d6 damage.  It had variant damage as an optional rule (that I think 99% of tables opted into), but it simply remained silent on the subject of non-class weapons.  And I think most people simply went along with it.  And if a magic-user PC happened to pick up a dropped sword and swing it at encroaching enemies, the DM was expected to just make a ruling about how that worked.  But those who came into AD&D through D&D, primed with the idea that "magic-users simply can't use swords", interpreted the AD&D rules that same way.But that's really part of the large second group, isn't it?  The conventions might be subtly different -- generating complications vs. making the DM's Mountain Dew come out of his nose, but ultimately it's the DM deciding to put the benny into play, with player free to redistribute it as they see fit.Ah, I see what you mean.  On the whole, I would say in terms of "story progression", 5e is to 4e as AD&D is to BECMI.  It's there, if you're familiar with the latter you can play it up in the former, but it's definitely not as foregrounded.  And my sense with the Monsters, is that instead of a progression of different kinds of monsters (kobolds to orcs to giants to demons, for example), you progress through different kinds of captains.  The lower level monsters are viable for longer, so you start seeing more of them, led by more powerful bosses.My question here would be -- were those changes (downplaying of exploration of DM's pre-built world and corresponding emphasis on player-driven play) driven by the market, or were they the result of WotC forecasting?  I think the move from OD&D being a highly open, freeform game to AD&D being "mechanical systems for everything!" was a result of demand from players (customers).  I think the move from 1e's highly game-oriented play to 2e's highly story-oriented play was likewise driven by the market at the time.  The reformat of 2e's diverse, abstract system into 3e's d20 system, greater character customization, and rules interlinked as a gameworld simulator reflected demands in the market.  5e's move to a simpler, faster game, but with optional complexity is certainly reflective of demands in the market.With 4e, I think better balance, and more things for martials to do were definitely demanded by the market.  But my sense -- which may indeed be wrong -- is that much of 4e comes from the designers pushing the envelope, looking around at indie games, Euro boardgames, CCGs and MMORPGs to place 4e on the vanguard of what was to come.  So, those things you mentioned, plus a greater emphasis on tactical combat as an element of play (of course already present in the game, but taken to a whole new level of integration in the game) create a fundamentally different experience than someone might be expecting from D&D --and most importantly, no matter how much other parts of the game might hearken back to and reinforce traditional elements of the game, it's the changes that are the most salient.For me and many others, those changes were actually along the lines of how we were already playing D&D, be that with more player-driven development, or a stronger combat focus, so naturally we didn't have a strong averse reaction.I think Mercurius's point (though he can correct me if I'm wrong), is not that we must substitute others experiences and conceptions for our own, but that in the course of reviewing the series of events covering 2007-2014, it behooves us to be aware of others' experiences and conceptions.  I see nothing lost from being empathetic.</blockquote>

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