Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 5736135" data-attributes="member: 2205">I've long been a fan of the notion that rulings are more important than rules.  Heck, some of the authors who have written, either in game or in supplementary material (Dragon articles and whatnot) have gone so far as to assert that there are no rules to D&D, just suggestions.Curiously, although third edition was launched with "rule 0" prominently displayed in the first page or two of text, and the motto "tools, not rules" it's widely believed that this paradigm gradually shifted during the third edition era.  I'm genuinely curious if the presentation of the rules... perhaps at some point after 3e migrated to 3.5... contributed to this, or if it's more of a gestalt thing that just happened amongst a portion of the player base. Certainly our group didn't really adopt that approach.  Although we like to play "correctly" more often than not, and don't mind asking the resident rules encyclopedia guy his opinion on thorny issues, in general, we're all perfectly happy to accept a GM ruling and move on.  Although we like, often, to have the player impacted by the ruling try and look it up if he can to tell us later what we "should" have done according to the rulebook.  Just for curiousity.  But we don't always do that.  We're just as happy just having a ruling and go.I heard the term used first with Champions, I think.  I also associated it a lot more with systems like Hero or Gurps than with D&D, before 2000 anyway.  I think the connotation of a planned approach to building a character requires nothing more than tools with which to customize the character, and then it's a natural outgrowth of that.However, I don't really associate "character builds" with characters who start at first level and play through.  Although certainly I've seen characters who grew according to pre-planned "routes" or paths, and I've done a little bit of that even myself, I consider "character builds" to be characters that are crafted for a certain purpose at a certain level.  Either for one-shots, as NPCs or villains, or as characters who start at a game that's higher than 1st level.I also think a lot of the perception you're noting here is just that: you're perception.  There's nothing in the nature of the game itself that stipulates that this type of system mastery is necessary or even desireable; that's just an outgrowth of those who's tastes run that direction and wish to play that kind of metagame with their characters.  For those who don't... well, the customization tools also serve plenty of other purposes too.  Little things like the swashbuckler who takes a few ranks of Craft (needlepoint) so his frilly shirt can always be kept in top condition, even after he's been out and about adventuring, or the barbarian who has a few ranks of Profession (juggler) to make a little bit of cash between adventures add a level of character development that has nothing whatsoever to do with "gaming" the system or system mastery. Of course, you could always have come up with that kind of character development fluff on your own, but I'd argue that without the mechanics there to suggest the, chances are that much less of it would be done.Older editions didn't have any means of customizing your character, that's true.  And for many people, that was a serious flaw with D&D.  You refer earlier to how the game was "meant" to be played originally; I submit that that's an irrelevant consideration.  How the game is meant to be played is the way that brings the most enjoyment to your table.  If character customization isn't something that you want, that's all well and good, and I can hardly fault you for your taste and preference.  But casting the addition of character customization into the game as if it were a case of the game having "gone astray" and fallen from its pure and holy state or whatever is a mistake, I think.The inclusion of character customization options was, I strongly believe, done because WotC percieved a shift in demand in the marketplace that was asking for exactly that.  I know in my case, it was one of the main reasons that I was willing to come back to D&D after having given up and left in frustration with the system way back in the mid-80s... before 2nd edition, even.</blockquote>

Verification