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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8143244" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, OK, you could devise "some other form of D&D" where you telegraph risk/reward in a different way. However, IF YOU DON'T CODIFY THAT, then you run a serious risk of failing to communicate that to other people who play your game. In the case of classic D&D it was codified in the encounter tables (organized by level) and the outdoor encounter tables (organized by terrain type and expected to be customized by 'region' by the DM). This was also tied into the wandering monster mechanic, etc. So it was fairly deeply ingrained in the rest of the process of the game. If you remove it, you better make it very clear to the GM that there still need to be tie-ins between how wandering monsters work and 'risk/reward', however that is determined.If you are just making up your own stuff, then this is all pretty much up to the DM. Instead of 'dungeon level' there are just maybe different 'named dungeons' (which if you think about it is actually kind of how modules work). But if you're actually writing a game, you have to do this work up front. If you don't, people's games won't work! The same is true for playing "romance" instead of D&D. The 'rules' for that game are going to be VERY different! Sure, you can pound the square peg of D&D rules into the round hole of a romance story and simply get 'something'. If it is just some one-shot thing your doing for yourself, that MIGHT work, though you probably will have to make up additional rules that don't exist in D&D. If you were publishing such a game, it would be senseless to make it based on D&D however. D&D isn't going to provide you with any of the needed structure which you have to convey to another person who is going to run the game!Here's another example of a set of principles embodied into a game system: 4th edition D&D has 'role' and 'power source' as explicit attributes of each class. These embody, in a formalized structure, the niche and theme of a given class. This WORKS. 3.x is FILLED with 'trash classes' that barely work (if at all) and are grossly different from each other in terms of utility, power level, etc. such that many are essentially useless. EVERY SINGLE 4E CLASS WORKS. That is ENTIRELY because the role and power source define for the designers how something should work (A/E/D/U then provided further structure to keep it on track as it levels up). In fact, the very classes which were considered 'poor designs' are the very ones where the designers tried to skirt/subvert those attributes! Even THOSE classes still work (OK Binders are pretty worthless in the sense of being needed thematically, and they're weaker than they should be, but not by enough to be unplayable by any means). 3.5 has entire core classes that are drastically shortchanged (FIGHTERS, you can't get more core than that).</blockquote>

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