Are D&D rulebooks stuck in the 70's?

[Yeoman]

All the current games I'm in, are combat heavy, we do some social adventures, but rarely and only as a change of pace. For us, most of the time, we just want to unwind and relax, and we have fun killing things, and taking their treasure, but like I said we do some heavy rp adventures, but they are few and somewhat far between, and that's the way we like it.

 

[mkletch]

If anything, I find that the skills actually inhibit roleplaying.

12th level Bard: "I got a 37 on my Diplomacy check. Tell me everything."

13th level Rogue: "Well, I got a 29 on my Gather Info check. I really suck. Tell me everything anyway."

12th level Bard: "Well, I get a 32 on my Perform check ... again. When my Solar patron applauds my song, the whole town ignores the Rogue. Don't tell him anything."

DM:

As for combat, it really now is a minatures system, which implies a focus on combat. How important are minis for an audience with the king ... unless there will be an assassination attempt?

Finally, while there is a Sultans of Smack thread almost always active, I have yet to see Sultans of Spellcraft.

Our whole group, even the women (yes, I too play mostly with couples, in two groups) use D&D as a stress reliever by bashing orcs and dragons. Maybe it's just because we all have kids

-Fletch!

 

[Saeviomagy]

If anything, I find that the skills actually inhibit roleplaying.

All I've really got to say is "then you're doing it wrong". If you truely find that the skills are getting in the way of the roleplaying in the way your example indicates, then I think you've really missed the entire idea of them.

Do you honestly roleplay every friend of the PC's as a fawning sycophant, willing to tell them all the information they want to know? Does your best friend regularly let you read their diary? Just because an NPC is "helpful" doesn't make him some kind of mind-controlled zombie.

Gather information is a roll to skip all those boring unimportant NPC's which will just bog down the game. Do you really want the PC's to have to talk to every single person in town, or would you rather they skip to the guy with important info? Gather information gives you "Gary's the guy to talk to about that kind of thing", at which point you can pull out your fully-detailed and characterised NPC Gary.

As for combat, it really now is a minatures system, which implies a focus on combat. How important are minis for an audience with the king ... unless there will be an assassination attempt?

Is it me, or can this paragraph be refined down to:
"Combat uses a certain system, so there's a focus on combat. Why is the system used for combat important when there is no combat taking place?"

Why should the fact that you use miniatures for combat affect the style of the game outside of combat, or the amount of combat in the game? The two are tenuously connected at best.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

[Cut for Space]

Holy crap, Batman, I think he's got it!

 

[Shadowlord]

All I've really got to say is "then you're doing it wrong". If you truely find that the skills are getting in the way of the roleplaying in the way your example indicates, then I think you've really missed the entire idea of them.

That's true. As long as the DM is in power, everything will be fine. As a DM, don't ask for checks for everything the PCs do. For ex, don't ask for a listen or spot check when the DC is either very low or you know the PC will eventually find the clue. Ask for listen & spot though to prevent surprise rounds.

I think WOTC expanded all the aspects of the game, not only combat. Now you have a streamlined combat system, but you've also got all those nifty skills & feats which help you outside of combat! IMO they used combat as a backbone/guideline to balance the rest out, but they didn't wanna make the game more combat- or rule-oriented.

Just play the role and keep the rules in the back of your head. And as a DM, keep it all in CONTROL.

 

[Zappo]

I think I agree.

This is how i see things, they totally hosed the ballance of classes races by their over emphasis on combat.

They made sure every class can hang in there in combat, rogues, wizards, clerics, everything except amybe the bard is at best only marignally worse than the fighter in combat. Sure the fighter dishes more ocnsistent daamge but in way to many situations they out perform the fighter in a fight, so he is only margianlly better. What situations out of a fight is the fighter beter, riding a horse maybe. Yippee for the fighter he can ride a freakin horse.

If the fighter is only marginally better at fighting which he is, then he should only be marginally worse out of combat which he isn't.

They mangled the ballance by over emphasising combat.

Well, the class is called fighter... what did you expect? He fights, and that's it. If you want the character to do something else, multiclass.

Besides, you can't really expect each class to be balanced with each other for each style of gaming. They balanced them for combat, because combat is the field where balance is most important.

 

[Azlan]

For a roleplaying game, D&D provides scant material for defining your character's personality, other than his "alignment". With other RPGs, you can pick from lists of virtues, flaws, quirks, mental disadvantages, background options, etc., to flesh out your character, making him truly 3-dimensional and roleplay-able. But D&D doesn't have any of that built into its core rulebooks.

What D&D does have is a plethora of rules for combat. In fact, rules for combat take up about 2/3 or more of the Player's Handbook. (Consider: The bulk of spell descriptions, even, is for how those spells work in combat situations.)

D&D is first and foremost (though, of course, not entirely) about dungeon crawling. After all, "dungeons" is the first part of the game's name. Sure, you can use the D&D system to run a true "roleplaying" campaign. But, IMHO, roleplaying systems such as the Storyteller System (Vampire, Mage, Changling, etc.), Ars Magica, and Pendragon are better from the get-go, for that sort of thing.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

For a roleplaying game, D&D provides scant material for defining your character's personality, other than his "alignment". With other RPGs, you can pick from lists of virtues, flaws, quirks, mental disadvantages, background options, etc., to flesh out your character, making him truly 3-dimensional and roleplay-able. But D&D doesn't have any of that built into its core rulebooks.

It's even worse than that...

Star Wars (revised) on Page 6 has a (short) description of what a Role-Playing Game is.

Call of Cthulu on Page 5 also has a description of what a Role-Playing Game is.

Wheel of Time on Page 5 also has such.

D&D has squat in that regard.

What D&D does have is a plethora of rules for combat.

Which sets a poor standard, IMNSHO.

But, IMHO, roleplaying systems such as the Storyteller System (Vampire, Mage, Changling, etc.), Ars Magica, and Pendragon are better from the get-go, for that sort of thing.

Not necessarily. Or, that is to say, I see no reason for the limitations of the 3E designers to limit how I approach and play the game. Just because the catch-phrase during the pre-release era was "taking it back to the dungeon" doesn't mean that I have to do so personally. While the mechanics are an improvement, should I turn my back on 25+ years of evolution from hack-n-slash to epic-length campaigns back to hack-n-slash because some guy sitting in a exec boardroom determined that they'll sell the most copies if they go combat centric with advancement speeds aimed at instant gratification?

Nay, my friends. Nay.

 

[dcollins]

Keep in mind, I'm 33, and mostly game with couples - men and *gasp* women.

So by 10 minutes into a combat, the ladies are getting restless, on the whole, and would rather go back to journeying and citytalk.

I guess I'll chime in here and say this: I'm 32. My girlfriend is part of our gaming group. She's more bored by the role-playing interactions than anything else -- if there's no combat she starts to lose interest. (Same goes for computer games -- she can never remember the narrative "story" in a game after she's played it.)

 

[Shadowlord]

For a roleplaying game, D&D provides scant material for defining your character's personality, other than his "alignment". With other RPGs, you can pick from lists of virtues, flaws, quirks, mental disadvantages, background options, etc., to flesh out your character, making him truly 3-dimensional and roleplay-able. But D&D doesn't have any of that built into its core rulebooks.

What D&D does have is a plethora of rules for combat. In fact, rules for combat take up about 2/3 or more of the Player's Handbook. (Consider: The bulk of spell descriptions, even, is for how those spells work in combat situations.)

D&D is first and foremost (though, of course, not entirely) about dungeon crawling. After all, "dungeons" is the first part of the game's name. Sure, you can use the D&D system to run a true "roleplaying" campaign. But, IMHO, roleplaying systems such as the Storyteller System (Vampire, Mage, Changling, etc.), Ars Magica, and Pendragon are better from the get-go, for that sort of thing.

I always thought feats were great, till I noticed more & more feats gave combat benefits. What's missing is a step in character creation, somewhere along the lines of feats but which is about choosing (or rolling) a quirk & defect. IMO the free feat at 1st level should be a Trait: like a feat but with a distinct personality effect. One that's more powerful than a feat but which also has a disadvantage. Anyone tried such a houserule?

I think you can play d&d as a full RPG, not as a hack&slach game only. If you play in GH, dungeons are rationale. But try DL and you'll spend more effort on the "dragon" aspect than the "dungeon" element.

While d20 clarified & expanded the combat system, so too did it provide rules outside this scope like skills & feats. Thus you shouldn't switch to another game; d&d is dam fine.