A thing about d20 D&D I didn't like, and still don't know why it was done...

[WayneLigon]

I read this a lot. Why did any of you play D&D prior to d20, then? Why?

For a lot of us, it was the only game in town. A lot of people learned that as their first and only RPG, and knew the rules very well. Unwilling to give up that mastery, a lot of otherwise good players would not consider another game. Even when they would, it was rarely the same other game.

For a very long time, D&D was not anyone's (of course, I mean 'of the players in this area that I knew personally) first choice of RPG to play. But it was almost everyone's second or third choice. So we played it because it was one of the few things we could agree on to play. Nobody much liked that choice for very long, but even bad gaming was better than no gaming at all.

And there was a lot of support for it, which we got even with the dinky hobby stores we had (when we had a gaming store at all; we didn't for many years, which meant driving to Birmingham (1.5 hours) or Atlanta (3 hours) to see new games). That made a big, big difference.

So we played it, and house-ruled it into a form we could tolerate (though that tolerance was stretched thin a lot of times, so we had to take breaks from the system). As an example, after seeing games with skills, I knew I'd never be satisfied with a game that didn't have them. The 'proficiency' system was a poor and almost useless substitute, a sop as it were to give hope to those thinking of breaking away to a new game but having not quite worked up the gumption to do so.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I read this a lot. Why did any of you play D&D prior to d20, then? Why? I mean, I absolutely hate Rolemaster. Hate hate hate it. Got dragged through it a few times - enough to know I hate it. I don't play it. I won't play it. I didn't grind through it for umpteen years talking nonstop about how I hated it, though.

It was better than Role Master, and no one had GURPS books. Plus very few of us played it as written, and house ruled it to hell and back. It still didnt stop us from noting that the source material sucked.

 

[Kristivas]

WHat I was saying was "here's a situation where characters overcome a monster and gain some XP. They all overcome the monster in different ways, and apply what they learned about overcoming that monster differently."

(That's all it was, really! I promise! )

I'm not sure I could apply this logically.

Trying to justify the multitude of XP charts based on who learned what and how they applied it just doesn't make sense, imo. If you were to get that in-depth, wouldn't higher int or wis characters gain more experience because they can apply knowledge better? Would the low-int, high-strength fighter gain an xp penalty?

I like to think of experience as a meter, or glass. Every kill (or act that your DM awards experience for) fills that meter or pours some more liquid into the glass to get it closer to the top. If the 4 party members kill a hill giant, the same amount of juice gets poured into each of their cups. They all apply the 'juice' in their own way (fighter gets better at hitting, wizard gets better at casting, ect). Changing the size of the glass each guy needs to get to the top really makes no sense to me.

In my former gaming store where I used to live, my friends and I would often have discussions on these very issues with the guy that ran the place. He was around 40, so he was pretty against 3e and 3.5e and beyond. I think even "Skills and Powers" from AD&D 2e made him offended.

"You kids and your feats! In my day, they were called THIEVES! Clerics couldn't trade out spells for heals, they had to pray for them at dawn! The paladin and ranger were better than the fighter! Where's my geritol!?"

It wasn't pretty

 

[Pbartender]

The differing XP tables for classes rests on the assumption that characters approximately balance at different levels (sometimes differently at different times in their careers) and it's the amount of XP the character has that's the balancing factor.
Characters with 10,000 XP each are all expected to be approximately balanced even if they are at different levels.

Right, but where this falls apart is that you can just as easily shuffle around the abilities gained into different class levels so that characters are not only balanced at equal XP, but also at equal levels. In the end you get the same result -- balanced classes -- but the bookkeeping is a lot easier.

Why delay the 3rd level bonus class ability by requiring more experience for 3rd level, when you can just move that up to 4th or 5th level and keep everyone on the same XP track?

 

[billd91]

Right, but where this falls apart is that you can just as easily shuffle around the abilities gained into different class levels so that characters are not balanced at equal XP, but also at equal levels. In the end you get the same result -- balanced classes -- but the bookkeeping is a lot easier.

Why delay the 3rd level bonus class ability by requiring more experience for 3rd level, when you can just move that up to 4th or 5th level and keep everyone on the same XP track?

Which is pretty much the point of doing things the 3E way. That's what 20+ years of experience and development will do for you. You come up with better ways of handling inter-character balance.

 

[Brimshack]

Why did we play for so long?

I actually think it was the number of broken rules, myself. It created an atmosphere in which players and GMs were expected to tweak and re-tweak. Tinkering with the game was part of the fun, and since the expectation wasn't that everything was perfectly balanced, there was far less hesitation to get in there are start changing things. To me it was a far more creative experience than I have had with most 3.5 play. There is no sound reason 3.5 has to be less creative, but I think players (at least the local bunch I play with) are more reluctant to to tinker with it, which is a shame in my opinion.

 

[Ranger REG]

I read this a lot. Why did any of you play D&D prior to d20, then? Why? I mean, I absolutely hate Rolemaster. Hate hate hate it. Got dragged through it a few times - enough to know I hate it. I don't play it. I won't play it. I didn't grind through it for umpteen years talking nonstop about how I hated it, though.

Because D&D (boxed set) was my first love.

That and at that time I was too young to question the rules. I accepted them for what they are. But as playing time goes on, you realized that some rules (mechanics) just don't sit right with you.

Oh, and I LOVE Rolemaster, even when my PC in that game have been hacked twice and patched up with duct tape (that's way back in the late 80's).

HOWEVER, my hat of Storyteller and d06 know no limit.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't mind the 1-2e variable ExP charts...there's many worse headaches in all editions that need fixing before this one. Where it becomes a problem is if there's 2 characters - a Thief-11 and a MU-9 - and people just automatically assume the Thief is the more powerful of the two just because it has that number 11 attached to it, where in fact the MU-9 is probably slightly more powerful overall.

One thing I always liked from 1e were the level titles - even if they weren't used in play, just having them in the book gives a wonderful sense of flavour!

Lanefan

 

[Desdichado]

:shrug:

I, on the other hand, don't know why it wasn't done like that from the get-go and we had to wait until third edition for someone to think of it.

 

[molonel]

One thing I always liked from 1e were the level titles - even if they weren't used in play, just having them in the book gives a wonderful sense of flavour!

I can't play a monk at high or epic levels without calling him the Grandmaster of Flowers, or somesuch.