An Examination of Differences between Editions

[Imaro]

I have to make on-the-fly judgments in nearly every game I run, whether D&D 3.X or d20 Modern.

Is this because the "rule" isn't covered or because you don't remeber or know the rule. I'm not saying making up your own rules for D&D 3.x is wrong, I'm just of the philosophy that if this is the route I'm going to take then why play D&D 3.x(one of it's strengths is suppose to be codefied exspansive rules that balance the game for everyone), I'd rather play a game that sets the fact that I'm going to ad-hoc out there for me and the players to be aware of. YMMV of course.

First of all, diplomacy checks are not a mind-controlling spell.

Secondly, I don't like the diplomacy rules either. So I took them out, like any good DM should do with a part of any rules set that he or she doesn't like, and replaced them with Rich Burlew's alternate rules:

http://www.giantitp.com/articles/jFppYwv7OUkegKhONNF.html

And this is my biggest problem with some of the defenses of 3.x or really any rpg. Instead of discussing what the rules in the game state(whether rule 0 exists or doesn't) it boils to X or Y or Z can't be an awkward/illogical/etc. rule because you can change it.

I never said Diplomacy was a mind control spell, but there are rules on adjusting an NPC's attitude with a single die roll with set DC's in the PHB(really don't understand this one ) That's pretty much spelling it out and IMHO is something that should have been a DM only thing.

Thirdly, I know people who play freeform roleplaying. No rules at all, except for what the GM creates moment-by-moment. They laugh at me for playing ANY edition of D&D, because a TRULY imaginative game master - in their opinion - doesn't need rules to tell a story.

Good for them, but I'm not one of them. You don't need rules to tell a story but you need them for a game. Now how many rules you actually need is a taste/up for debate thing. Personally I like minimal rules that apply logically to a wide variety of in-game situations. A basis upon which I can build a level of familiarity and comfortability with. I don't need the DC examples of every skill laid out for my players(because I may not agree with those examples) just one example of difficulty levels labeled: Easy,Average, Challenging, Difficult, etc. to give them a grasp on their skill level.Then I decide what those "levels of difficulty" mean and when they apply.

Some things truly are a matter of perspective. 3rd Edition isn't the game for everyone. If it were, then no other games would exist, and the gaming world would be much poorer as a result. 1st Edition, or Castles & Crusades, scratches the imaginative itch of some folks better than 3rd Edition.

I'm not bashing 3rd edition, actually was a fan of it for a while(still won't get rid of my core or complete books...Eberron on the other hand...), but in a public discussion I feel justified in stating my oppinions and thoughts even if they don't mesh with everyone else's.

 

[Celebrim]

ISecondly, I don't like the diplomacy rules either. So I took them out, like any good DM should do with a part of any rules set that he or she doesn't like, and replaced them with Rich Burlew's alternate rules:

http://www.giantitp.com/articles/jFppYwv7OUkegKhONNF.html

I think Rich has set out some very useful guidelines, and I think he takes the skill description in the right direction and I'd like to see his guidelines bundled into '4e' whenever that will be, but I consider his inclusion of HD in the formula to be a gamist kludge and I don't like it. It also leads to some bizarre situations where for example, a kingly (high level) fighter can't get his wife the (high level) sorceress queen to pass him the salt - despite the low effort in complying, thier intimate relationship, and a happy marriage. Or, in cases where the game doesn't conform to gamists principles - such as a king being 3rd level aristocrat - his kludge doesn't achieve the result he is going for.

Rather than a kludge that depends on hit dice, I think he needs to replace that with a third area of circumstantial modifiers similar to the other two. Namely, he needs guidelines for the relative authority (as percieved) by the target of the diplomacy. In other words, a King, by virtue of being the King, doesn't allow himself to be persued by smooth talking slaves no matter how smooth talking they are. Whereas, a slave, by virtue of being a slave, tends to put more stock in whatever the King says. I think Rich has been trying to bundle this in with 'percieved risk', and there is something to that, but I think that in general the perception of percieved risk and the perception of authority are distinct things. In particular, whenever the persuasion depends primarily on an implicit or explicit threat ("if I disobey the king he'll behead me") whats really going on is an Intimidate check. But it should be pretty clear that people believe and are persuaded and not merely forced to comply by people that they percieve to be authorities or in authority more readily than they are persuaded by other people. For example, consider the persuasive power possessed by celebraties even though the degree of percieved risk in not being persuaded is quite low. People believe things sometimes solely because someone who has a high (percieved) social status said it.

You can easily see how this solves the problems with Rich's Kludge. The King asks his wife for some salt, and he's not at a -20 circumstance penalty because she's a 20th level sorcerer, rather he's at +0 circumstance penalty because they are peers (or maybe just a slight penalty, ask any man who is married). The sellswords ask the King for a favor, and they aren't at merely a -3 penalty because he's third level, but at a -7 (or even -10) regardless of his level because he percieves them as being socially beneath him. And so forth.

 

[Imaro]

One of the main strengths of D&D is the Level system - you can judge the combat effectiveness of a PC far better in D&D because of it. (GURPS has no such baseline.)

The Class/Level system isn't there for simplicity: it's there so the DM can judge the challenges the party can take on far more effectively than otherwise.

Cheers!

I disagree because that is still part of simplicity. But, as others have stated...

1.) I didn't address levels only classes in the fact that they are suppose to facilitate ease and speed of character creation by reinforcing familiar archetypes in a genre, in my mind D&D 3.x doesn't do this anymore( and yes even with just the core rules but it's increased with supplements)

2.)Two PC's at the same level can have wildly varying degrees of effectiveness dependent upon their mastery of rules, available supplemental material, etc. This mens that the whole CR thing is becoming less and less aplicable to a "general" group. Eventually as a DM you have to judge what your players can and can't handle, I figur better to learn it early on than stumble through it at higher levels.

3.) What exactly is the baseline, I think most would agree that there are many feats that are just plain better than others...now a player who has a low level of rules mastery may not be able to see that, while someone who knows the rules inside and out will. The real problem is challenging both in a campaign. Which one of these players is the "baseline"?

 

[SuStel]

Hmm. Although that's somewhat true for common tasks (e.g. adjudicating whether someone has jumped over a pit), there is so much that the DM can do that the computer can't - particularly in the area of roleplaying.

But everyone around the table can do this, whether player or referee, so it's no equalizer for what I said earlier. And D&D wasn't originally conceived of as a play-acting game, but as a 1:1 wargame-like game in which the rules did not prescribe your allowed actions.

That was the real innovation of D&D. In previous games, the rules prescribed what you were allowed to do. In D&D, the rules did not do this. You could try anything.

In this sense d20 has tended back toward the wargame. Rules have been developed prescribing most of your allowed actions.

 

[molonel]

Is this because the "rule" isn't covered or because you don't remeber or know the rule. I'm not saying making up your own rules for D&D 3.x is wrong, I'm just of the philosophy that if this is the route I'm going to take then why play D&D 3.x(one of it's strengths is suppose to be codefied exspansive rules that balance the game for everyone), I'd rather play a game that sets the fact that I'm going to ad-hoc out there for me and the players to be aware of. YMMV of course.

No rules set is every going to be completely comprehensive. D&D 3.X is no exception. I've been playing since six months after Third Edition came out, and at this point, the rules are pretty much ingrained in my memory. I have to make on-the-fly judgments because my players are creative and they attempt things that aren't covered by the rules.

It seems like you're saying that if the rules are truly comprehensive, then they ought to cover EVERYTHING. But no rules set does that, or claims to.

By that logic, why play anything other than free-form roleplaying where the GM invents all rules on the fly?

And this is my biggest problem with some of the defenses of 3.x or really any rpg. Instead of discussing what the rules in the game state(whether rule 0 exists or doesn't) it boils to X or Y or Z can't be an awkward/illogical/etc. rule because you can change it.

You seem to misunderstand my meaning. I don't like the 3.X diplomacy rules, and I don't see any way of salvaging them any more than I see any way of realistically salvaging Epic Spellcasting. It is hopeless borked, and therefore, I remove it.

Your "problem" appears to be that you can't understand that I'm agreeing with you. I'm also suggesting what I consider to be a reasonable alternative.

I never said Diplomacy was a mind control spell, but there are rules on adjusting an NPC's attitude with a single die roll with set DC's in the PHB(really don't understand this one ) That's pretty much spelling it out and IMHO is something that should have been a DM only thing.

There are rules for influencing NPCs, but, like I said: it is not a mind-controlling spell. But it says in the DMG, page 128, "In general, you run an NPC just a player would run a PC. You take whatever actions the chararacter would take, assuming the action is possible. That's why it's important to determine an NPC's general outlook and characteristics ahead of time if possible, so you know how to play the character properly" (page 128).

A character MAY try to use Diplomacy to influence attitude, but it's not a domination effect. A silver-tongued bard or rogue may change the expression on the face of the NPC when they say, "No" to your request, but he or she can't make the NPC do something he wouldn't normally do.

 

[Celebrim]

I never said Diplomacy was a mind control spell, but there are rules on adjusting an NPC's attitude with a single die roll with set DC's in the PHB(really don't understand this one ) That's pretty much spelling it out and IMHO is something that should have been a DM only thing.

I agree. There were rules for adjusting NPC attitude with a die rule in AD&D as well, but they were in the DMG where they were safely the province of the DM to do with as he wished. They were also like so many rules of AD&D widely ignored.

I personally like having diplomacy guidelines, because it helps nudge the DM to treat character Charisma and not just player Charisma as important and worthy of rewarding. This means that Charisma is far from being a dump stat. (Anyone that has played the game Planescape: Torment has seen a very good example of how character Charisma and Wisdom can and should influence play.) But I do think that the current diplomacy guidelines are too PC centered, too shallow, and do not make it clear to either players or DM's alike that significant circumstance modifiers always apply. What I like about Rich's guidelines is that they give good guidance to arbitrating something which is otherwise quite complex without leaving it entirely to DM fiat in every case, and also nicely bolster the DM's position whenever using semi-fiat mechanics like assigning a circumstance bonus... (ei, 'Why did I get a -21 penalty on this roll?')

 

[Celebrim]

You seem to misunderstand my meaning. I don't like the 3.X diplomacy rules, and I don't see any way of salvaging them any more than I see any way of realistically salvaging Epic Spellcasting. It is hopeless borked, and therefore, I remove it.

I've been meaning to rewrite the rules for Epic Spellcasting for a while now. I think that the idea is sound, but you are right about the execution being 'borked'. I don't think the problem is hopeless by any means, and in fact the only thing I'd be worried about is the fact that skill enhancing items are way underpriced. But with a few restrictions on those and changes in the item creation rules, I don't see any reason why the Epic Seed rules couldn't be rewritten to something more sensible and worthwhile.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But, in previous editions, there were very, very few decisions to be made for character development at all. If you were a fighter at 1st level, you were going to be a fighter at 15th level.

Sure.

I'm not saying that the ability to create builds is a bad thing, merely that it is a real thing, and a change of emphasis from earlier editions that has a real impact both on how the game is perceived and the game is played. In other words, it is not simple a "garbage" remark.

In any discussion of differences between editions, it isn't "disingenious" to point this out. Presumably, most people involved in the thread have played multiple editions, and/or they can look through some of the excellent posts hereing to learn what was or wasn't possible in various editions.

Yes, you should look ahead to what you may be doing a few levels or even several levels. That's the entire point of giving players control over how their characters develop. Previously, there was very little control over the development of a character. Note, I'm specifically referring to mechanical development. Role play development is a bit of a different beast and is possible in any edition.

In previous editions, you could change from a human fighter to a human thief, there just wasn't much incentive to do so.

Do decisions made while adventuring have more or less impact on character development? I don't really see how either way. You had almost no impact on character development mechanically previously and in 3e, it is possible to develop the mechanics of your character independently of the story in the game. If I want to take the Mystic Theurge PrC, for example, it doesn't really matter if the game is a high intrigue court plot or straight up dungeon crawl. I can do it in either campaign.

If you wanted to change from an elven fighter in 1e to an elven thief, the DM could (if kind) let you travel to the mysterious Fountain of Ix, whose DM-Fiat magic allowed such a change. Thus, your in-game decisions directly affected your mechanical build. If you chose not to visit the Fountain, you couldn't also choose to change your class.

(I personally think that this is largely a good thing, and my house rules include expanded options. However, I can see where some might differ from my opinion there. )

Likewise, the treasure you had was ultimately tied to your success in adventuring rather than your level -- and more importantly, your magic items (the big mechanical bennie of 1e) were tied to your success in adventuring rather than your success in shopping.

(I think that the changes here are largely a bad thing. Again, I can see where some might differ from my opinion. Note, of course, that it is still possible to play 3.X the same as you did previous editions as far as treasure and magic are concerned -- I do, afterall -- but that does require slightly more care in DMing than running the default assumptions.)

You didn't answer my question. Where is Rule 0 stated outside of the 1e PHB and maybe the DMG? It is stated in almost every player related book in 3e. It is stated numerous times in Dragon magazine. It has been stated and restated time and time again. How many times does it need to be stated?

How many times do you have to repeat the same refrain before it becomes a rule?

BTW, where is it stated that the DM should say yes in 3e?

Are you saying that it is your contention that "The DM has final say" is stated as strongly or as forcefully in 3.X as in earlier editions? If you are, then I'll go to the effort of looking in the books to answer your question. If you are not, what bearing does your question have?

 

[SuStel]

RE: DMs changing called unfair by players

I'm not convinced, though, that the 3e designers intended this. I think they wanted to provide comprehensive rules for DMs that wanted them. They thought that novice DMs would be made better by this. (Which it does--for some.) I also think they expected experienced DMs/groups to gloss over the details & play it more the way they always had.

I didn't mean to suggest that this reaction was intentionally provoked in writing the third edition. I think the attitude was, "These rules make a lot of sense, and fill in the gaps where there weren't rules before." While this isn't necessarily a bad attitude when designing a game, I think it ultimately undermines the original wide-open nature of the role-playing game form. Where there are no rules, a referee can't be resented for breaking them. Some may resent the referee for making a questionable judgement, but this has always been the curse of the referee, in any kind of game.

 

[SuStel]

One of the main strengths of D&D is the Level system - you can judge the combat effectiveness of a PC far better in D&D because of it. (GURPS has no such baseline.)

If you ask about how to judge GURPS combat effectiveness in a GURPS forum, the answer will always be: forget about character points; you'll learn by playing. In other words, playing GURPS is a skill, like any other. This idea used to be applied to D&D, too! (For instance, Gary's Role-Playing Mastery.)

The Class/Level system isn't there for simplicity: it's there so the DM can judge the challenges the party can take on far more effectively than otherwise.

Ummm… no. Classes exist to delineate what kind of tools the adventurer has at his disposal. Levels exist to delineate the powers of that class of adventurer. That the referee can judge encounter strengths by comparing levels and hit dice is a side-effect of the way the game is structured.