Banishing "Sacred Cows"

Mercule said:
Epic battles are good. Usually, they don't happen in a city square. Considering that even exploring the dark lord's fortress is considered being "in the dungeon", I can't imagine how you could play a reasonable game of D&D without some sort of "dungeon". It would feel more like Sorcerer's Crusade (cool game, but not the same) or Ars Magica.

Sure, if you have a very loose definition of a dungeon. The last session I ran (Saturday) had a battle on a forest road, a fist-fight in a bar, an ambush on the PCs in their three rooms in the inn above said bar, further ambushes on the street and rooftops as they ran from the city watch, and then a hiding out in an abandoned warehouse that lead to some low-level undead encounters. I wouldn't call any of those situations a "dungeon" yet the game was fairly combat heavy.

BTW, I really need to post the second half of that story hour before we play again! Although I think we might take a break this week and play Settlers of Catan or something like that, since we've got a number of folks out. :D
 

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ColonelHardisson said:
Actually, it would be impossible. There will always be those who want the game changed. D&D now has more players than ever, just about - trying to please everyone is a fruitless quest. Concentrating on what is making all those who do like the game happy seems a better tactic.
I dunno. There's tons of options in the DMG and newer books have more options still. Maybe the systems would simply be too complicated, but some quick guidelines on how to not do levels, or hit points, for example, would be easy and would go a long ways towards appeasing folks. Especially folks like me who are happy enough playing d20, but who still have nagging doubts about certain mechanics that I'd like to not have to deal with.
 


ColonelHardisson said:
Actually, it would be impossible. There will always be those who want the game changed. D&D now has more players than ever, just about - trying to please everyone is a fruitless quest. Concentrating on what is making all those who do like the game happy seems a better tactic.

Thats what the D20 publishers are for, i think. WOTC needs to stay pretty "stock" if the want to remain top dog. Its up to the publishers like Atlas Games(Occult Lore), AEG (spycraft anyone?) and the like to provide new mechanics or alternate rules. Most of Atlas game's products pushes the edge in both demeanor and mechanics a step at a time, as do a few others. They seem to be taking it slowly (i'm impatient though), though i don't blame them. One misstep and they could step to far out of line. No one wants to be the only guy out of line in the row! Thats usually bad. :p
 

ColonelHardisson said:
Like I said, I like variants. Maybe WotC could do a DMG II. Or, someone could collect all the OGL variants out there into one book.
I'd buy it. But my original lament still holds true, some of the basic features of d20 haven't been stretched yet. d20 CoC was the closest we got. I'd like to see more stretching of the system first, so we can really have meaningful options.
 

I think, after reading most of this thread, my thoughts on it are changing.

While I don't have a problem with hit points, AC, or combat in general, I would like to see the magic system re-worked to make more sense AND be more "realistic" (oxymoron noted).

Instead of classes and "levels," I'd like to see experience points use to 'buy' things like more hitpoints, increased BAB, skills, feats, spells, etc.

It would probably be too complicated for the masses, but they could simply make a D&D version 3.5 as mentioned, sort of like the old Skills & Powers rule subset, that would allow more customizable options for character generation/advancement. I say throw classes out the window.

90% of my character 'concepts' don't fit any of the classes they list in the core rulebook. I think it's unrealistic and _confining_ to have to adopt a "job"-like class, where for the most part (despite the best efforts of 3e designers) one member of a given class is pretty much a lot like the next.

For example, how many rogues should there be in a party? How many is too many? What if everyone wants to play a rogue? Sure, as the rules stand, they can do it, but it's kind of silly when one wants to 'tweak' a character to fit a concept, IMO. I just don't think the classes provide enough flexibility, as is.
 

Instead of classes and "levels," I'd like to see experience points use to 'buy' things like more hitpoints, increased BAB, skills, feats, spells, etc....I just don't think the classes provide enough flexibility, as is.
You can get most of the flexibility with a fraction of the complexity by making all the classes more like the Fighter. If every class's Special Abilities were implemented as Bonus Feats, then -- especially with 3E's elegant multiclassing -- you could make most character concepts quite easily, and without much math.
 

Joshua Dyal said:


A game designer like Monte Cook? Or is his essay to be taken as gospel truth, somehow?

Um, I haven't referred to Monte Cook or his essay at all. I have no idea why you think I would take it to be gospel truth.


Last time I read about the market research, what exactly the gamers liked about the game wasn't even addressed. The fact that we had that whole fable by SKR on game design philosophies shows me that WotC is still stabbing in the dark here. There's no reason whatsoever to assume they have market research that supports dungeon crawls.

Correct. And, also an indication that I haven't gotten my point across. I am not saying they definitely are dungeoncrawling (though I'll admit to expecting it). I'm saying that the evidence to say they aren't is slim. More slim than the evidence to say that they are.


I agree that the online community is a very skewed community, but from a numbers perspective, it's still an important sample. And according to those numbers, D&D market share isn't even close to what I assumed: that's less than 60%. Still the lion's share, no doubt, but hardly to the point where the other players are insignificant, as Dancey claimed.

As I said - RPG.net and EN world combined probably comprise less than one third of one percent of the gaming community. Call that important, if you want to.

Also, two notes:
1) That 59% was as of 1999 - three years ago, prior to the release of 3E. One would presume that more people are playing D&D these days.

2) As I understand it, "market share" isn't measured in percentage of the customers, but in percentage of sales. The market doesn't recognize gamers who sit back playing without buying books. If D&D players are buying tons of books, and players of other systems aren't buying books at all, D&D dominates the gaming market.
 

Umbran said:
Um, I haven't referred to Monte Cook or his essay at all. I have no idea why you think I would take it to be gospel truth.
Maybe you haven't. Certainly in this thread his essay has been pulled many times as "counter-evidence" to my own position.

Correct. And, also an indication that I haven't gotten my point across. I am not saying they definitely are dungeoncrawling (though I'll admit to expecting it). I'm saying that the evidence to say they aren't is slim. More slim than the evidence to say that they are.
Important distinction. I agree.

As I said - RPG.net and EN world combined probably comprise less than one third of one percent of the gaming community. Call that important, if you want to.
Statistical samples don't have to be big to be meaningful. However, as I (and you) both mentioned the bias in these samples makes them suspect. Their size isn't so much of a problem, though. The fact that presumably the ratios of tastes in those samples represent to some extent the ratios of tastes in the whole gamer community is fine for a sample of a few thousand people. Opinion polls are often based on numbers as small or smaller for populations much larger. It's not that the rpg.net folks are important per se just that they presumably represent the tastes of gamers at large.

Also, two notes:
1) That 59% was as of 1999 - three years ago, prior to the release of 3E. One would presume that more people are playing D&D these days.
Yes, that's true. Still, Dancey said that the other games in the market were "insignifigant" relative to D&D. More than 40% isn't insignificant. And who knows what that ratio is now, though.

2) As I understand it, "market share" isn't measured in percentage of the customers, but in percentage of sales. The market doesn't recognize gamers who sit back playing without buying books. If D&D players are buying tons of books, and players of other systems aren't buying books at all, D&D dominates the gaming market.
True, but presumably those same spending habits hold true for all (in print) games equally, so the effect of it should be a wash.
 
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mmadsen said:
You can get most of the flexibility with a fraction of the complexity by making all the classes more like the Fighter. If every class's Special Abilities were implemented as Bonus Feats, then -- especially with 3E's elegant multiclassing -- you could make most character concepts quite easily, and without much math.

Perhaps, but I'm not as excited about feats as the 3e designers apparently seemed to be. For example, let's say I want to make a character with a certain set of spells that he can cast. How does a feat system accomplish this? Also, is BAB progression able to be bought with feats? That's why I think you could buy a +1 to your BAB for a certain XP cost, certain hit-die for a certain cost (a d10 would cost more than a d8, of course), spells (at spell-level per day) for different costs, Save bonuses at certain costs, skills, etc.

So certain abilities like barbarian rage, backstab, lay on hands, etc. are worth different amounts, and all are worth more than your typical 'feat.' So costs would vary, and the game would still provide linear progression without the too-gradiant "level" crap. XP would be spent as desired, or saved up for something "bigger" like a 1d6 backstab bonus or a spell.

Yes, it would be complicated, and it would take work; the whole system would needs to be overhauled. I'm talking about D&D 4.0 at this point. But if someone was gonna pay me (i.e., buy the product), I'd bet any amount of money I could do it. Heck, I'm sure a lot of us on these boards could do it. And it would be a huge improvement in the game we all love so much. IMHO. ;)
 

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