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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8135254" data-attributes="member: 82106">Honestly, D&D fell down a rabbit hole in 1989 with the publication of 2e. Though obviously people's understanding and adherence to the conceptual framework exemplified in 1e (and I would say also explicated fairly well, albeit in slightly different ways in the 'BASIC' set of products) varied and a lot of people didn't play in the way Gygax seemed to intend.So, Gary basically outlines a game of what we would now call 'skilled play'. The basic structure is that the DM (and this term, DUNGEON MASTER is not arbitrary) builds a 'MAP' and a 'KEY', which explicates a complex series of challenges for a set of players (this can also be performed using a random generator, either entirely or partially). The DM's job from there is to act as a narrator, bringing the map and key into 3-dimensional life and providing additional sensory information as needed. The DM also acts as referee, adjudicating in a neutral fashion all situations which the exploration and/or combat rules don't cover, or which their simplistic application might produce ridiculous results. The DM is also expected to guard against 'rules exploitation' in which the player's find flaws in the mechanics in order to 'cheat the world' and get what they want in some unrealistic and (here we get into a grey area) 'unfair' way.The 1e DM is NOT supposed to be aiming at 'creating a story', not supposed to railroad the PCs into his preferred situations, etc. He's simply supposed to stand by and referee neutrally as the players guide their PCs across the dungeon or hex grid (outdoors) encountering whatever is on the map, or perhaps dealing with wandering monsters, lack of healing, and dwindling supplies (the original game actually used AH's Outdoor Survival rules to adjudicate this part). There are a few issues which arise in practice. First of all the DM probably wants to showcase his most fun tricks, traps, and nasty cunning challenges (all of these are 'fair play' in the skilled play paradigm of 1e). Often things won't go as planned, and thus the DM may be tempted to use a bit of force (illusionism usually) to 'set things straight'. Thus when the Elf doesn't roll well to find a secret door, maybe the DM fudges the outcome. Maybe his favorite NPC always escapes at the end of being beaten by the party, etc. too. This is where 'fun story' creeps in, because the simple 'skilled play maze' doesn't really lead to that. It can lead to a lot of fun annecdotes and whatnot, but you have to abandon that paradigm at a certain point, to a degree, to really make things like high level play 'work'. And then of course there is a constant incentive in this system for the players to undermine the game, because they are fundamentally 'playing against the DM'. This leads to another source and rationalization of pushback. Gygax D&D doesn't lead to things that sound like Conan, or Beowulf, or even a lot like "Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser". That was where 2e fell into the rabbit hole. It substituted a whole new set of incentives and admonitions, while removing a lot of the mechanical structure that made the dungeon crawl work in 1e (most people who played 2e never noticed this, they just carried over the older rules processes). 2e's formula is literally to discard the DM's 'fair arbiter' role and replace it with a 'storymaster' role, one in which the DM shapes the action of play and the trajectory of the game's narrative and fiction such that it reaches his or her predefined 'correct' outcomes. This is very explicit in the introductory material for 2e, where the DM is advised to alter die rolls and such. You can see this as just basically a codification of the tendency for 1e DMs to 'make sure the PCs see the interesting stuff' or even of Gygax's sporadic "DM as enforcer" admonitions. It isn't really though, it goes way beyond that. The problem is, D&D was never given any mechanism, process, or even advice on how to make it actually work. A really skilled DM can kinda do that. They can listen carefully, prepare skillfully, and execute their agenda with a light enough hand and with an interesting and compelling enough narrative, to pull it off. At least for some subset of all players (which is probably a lot if you are really skilled, but NOT [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] ). 4e is the only point at which any attempt has been made to really come close to addressing this. It is hard to say exactly which elements of 4e drove Mike to develop 5e, I'm not convinced it was the "make a better narrative technique" part, but more the "make a better Euro Game" part (read what the designers have said about this, that was a primary goal, not "make it like an MMO"). 5e just kind of gives up, and IMHO that makes it uninteresting. You could beat on it and make a game that uses a lot of 5e's mechanics that would play more in the way I'm talking about, but why bother? There are plenty of games, including 13a and 4e itself, that already do it. Plenty of non-D&D-likes that do it MUCH better.</blockquote>

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