Banishing "Sacred Cows"

[Desdichado]

On the contrary. 3E was definitely touted as "Back to the Dungeon." Didn't seem to hurt it's sales prospects any, and it certainly brought back lots of old gamers who abandoned the story-telling approach to gaming espoused by 2nd-ed types like Dragonlance.

Considering that Necromancer Game's "3rd edition rules, 1st edition feel" has successfully captured a large segment of such a gaming population (and many of them veterans --- I'm running the 1st edition Temple of Elemental Evil conversion right now, just to show how old school I am), I think that giving up the dungeon would be a big marketing mistake that a corporation like WoTC wouldn't make. (And certainly, something that TSR ignored to it's detriment)

Never EVER forget that this is first and foremost a game. One of the reasons that D&D 3E is so successful is because the designers and supporters never forgot that D&D is a game and supposed to be fun. Not to say that you can't use the same system to do deep immersion story telling, but to make out that style of play to be superior in some fashion is plain wrong.

First off, a few points.

• I never heard of 3e being touted as back to the dungeon. That's a rather obscure bit of box text in the DMG.
• How do you know that that's why folks abandoned 2e, or why they came back? In my experience, and the "industry consensus" if you will, is that most of those who left D&D went to games that were more focused on storytelling, not less.
• Sure, a significant portion of folks like Necromancer Games approach. A significant portion of folks don't. A significant portion of folks can't stand that approach at all. Just because you have a "significant portion" of folks, whatever that means, doesn't mean you have a majority. Or even a significant data point.
• OK, you think that WotC would ignore the dungeon to it's detriment. Then again, what do you know really? I think that that had nothing whatsoever to do with the demise of TSR. But that's just what I think.
• I know that D&D is supposed to be a game. What do Dungeons and a dungeon-crawling system have to do with that?
• Why do you immediately suppose that I feel myself superior because I don't like dungeons and I suppose that most gamers don't care for them as well? Dungeons are a crutch -- they betray the wargaming roots of D&D and the puzzle-solving DMing style of Gary Gygax. In my experience, which admittedly is somewhat limited (but I have confidence in it!) few gamers care to approach the game that way. That certainly doesn't mean we don't understand that the game is, in fact, a game. We play to have fun too. But dungeon's, except as a retro thing every so often, aren't really very fun.

See the other thread, on what kind of game do you hate. Sure, it's just more of my ranting, but it perhaps spells it out more clearly.

 

[Skoal]

I just feel that a book called Dungeon Masters Guide for the game Dungeons and Dragons need to have a significant portion deal with Dungeons. Not everyone is a experienced DM who can weave stories. The only time half the people in my group is awake is if there is fighting. So, until they change the name of the game in 4th edition to "Meadows and Peasants" I expect dungeons.

It's not like the DMG didn't have anything on story telling.

 

[Desdichado]

I just feel that a book called Dungeon Masters Guide for the game Dungeons and Dragons need to have a significant portion deal with Dungeons. Not everyone is a experienced DM who can weave stories. The only time half the people in my group is awake is if there is fighting. So, until they change the name of the game in 4th edition to "Meadows and Peasants" I expect dungeons.

It's not like the DMG didn't have anything on story telling.

OK, I GET it. I've noticed that you can read the word Dungeon in the title of the game and in the DMG. So what? Does that make it essential to the game? Hardly. It was just a catchy title, not a description of how the game HAD to be played. And it doesn't take an experienced DM to weave stories, although the fact that you think it does perhaps bolsters my claim earlier that dungeons are just a crutch of beginner DMs.

 

[Umbran]

Gents, perhaps it's time to step away and relax? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the general annoyance factor here seems to have gone up a few notches. If it's "just a game", there's no reason to get your danders up in discussing it.

It's clear that you have differing opinions. Since nobody's got clear data or evidence beyond that, it'll have to stay that way.

 

[Hakkenshi]

Well, it IS true that both dragons and dungeons are a staple of most D&D games...

Dungeons are useful in that they give the Necromancer his secret lair in the depths of a castle; they give mummies low-rent housing; they give dwarves a place to use stonecunning; they give shadows a place to be in the dark; and much, much more.

All kidding aside, let's face it: pretty much any dark, dank hall qualifies as part of a dungeon. Even city sewers could be classified under the dungeon heading, in the sense of exploring tight musty corridors (and not in the traditional architectural sense of the word).

Personally, I think they're great. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't vary from that motif at all

 

[Desdichado]

Gents, perhaps it's time to step away and relax? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the general annoyance factor here seems to have gone up a few notches. If it's "just a game", there's no reason to get your danders up in discussing it.

It's clear that you have differing opinions. Since nobody's got clear data or evidence beyond that, it'll have to stay that way.

Nah, my online voice just comes across harsh. I'm not really annoyed. Really, I promise!

With very little trouble I can play the game without dungeons, and it's no skin off my back if anyone else does so. I don't believe that dungeons are any kind of sacred cow to D&D, though. In fact, I believe strongly that the dungeon-focus is one of the key factors that drove gamers away from D&D to to White Wolf in droves in the early nineties. Even D&D tried to pull away from it because that's where the market was, but the system itself was so poor for anything else other than clearly defined combat roles and the like that it never really worked, making D&D story modules worse than pathetic. But I can almost gaurantee it: you talk to almost any gamer who left D&D to go to other games in the days before 3e and they'll tell you that they percieved D&D to be hack-n-slash and juvenile. It was simply too much work to make it serve any other purpose, and the majority of the players who played it preferred that kind of style. "Industry consensus" is still binning the cause of the success of White Wolf, for instance, on that factor more than anything else.

 

[Umbran]

In fact, I believe strongly that the dungeon-focus is one of the key factors that drove gamers away from D&D to to White Wolf in droves in the early nineties. Even D&D tried to pull away from it because that's where the market was, but the system itself was so poor for anything else other than clearly defined combat roles and the like that it never really worked, making D&D story modules worse than pathetic. But I can almost gaurantee it: you talk to almost any gamer who left D&D to go to other games in the days before 3e and they'll tell you that they percieved D&D to be hack-n-slash and juvenile. It was simply too much work to make it serve any other purpose, and the majority of the players who played it preferred that kind of style. "Industry consensus" is still binning the cause of the success of White Wolf, for instance, on that factor more than anything else.

Well, I dunno. People talk about "people leaving D&D for WW in droves". I've yet to meet a gamer who did so. Some picked up WW games, but didn't stop playing D&D. *shrug*. I don't think anyone's actually done a study or survey, and anecdotal evidence on the topic is highly suspect. "Industry consensus" isn't convincing unless it's actually backed by hard data. Industry people are just as likely to be misled by a story as anyone else.

As for "story modules" - the WW stuff I saw from the same time period was also pretty pathetic. Systems had little to do with it, I think. Probably the industry just hadn't yet worked out how to do a "story module". YMMV, of course.

 

[Sulimo]

First off, a few points.

• I never heard of 3e being touted as back to the dungeon. That's a rather obscure bit of box text in the DMG.
• How do you know that that's why folks abandoned 2e, or why they came back? In my experience, and the "industry consensus" if you will, is that most of those who left D&D went to games that were more focused on storytelling, not less.

• 
  
  If thats the case, I dont understand why 3e would draw them back. 3e if anything is going back to it wargaming roots...

 

[Desdichado]

Well, I dunno. People talk about "people leaving D&D for WW in droves". I've yet to meet a gamer who did so. Some picked up WW games, but didn't stop playing D&D. *shrug*. I don't think anyone's actually done a study or survey, and anecdotal evidence on the topic is highly suspect. "Industry consensus" isn't convincing unless it's actually backed by hard data. Industry people are just as likely to be misled by a story as anyone else.

As for "story modules" - the WW stuff I saw from the same time period was also pretty pathetic. Systems had little to do with it, I think. Probably the industry just hadn't yet worked out how to do a "story module". YMMV, of course.

I've met droves of them. I was one. And yes, "industry consensus" may not amount to a whole heck of a lot. That's why I "" the word: I'm not sure how much value it has. But if anyone has an idea, it's designers of other games during the mid-nineties or so. I trust their opinions on the state of the industry even if they don't have hard and fast marketing data to back it up.

And as to story modules, I agree that nobody really had good ones. Then again, WW didn't really do modules. They just did settings. Settings with lots of detail, so it was easy for GMs to find stories of their own in the detail. FR was kinda that way too, but the stories were just stale compared to what other guys were doing.

And the "droves" probably needs "" too. I don't know what "droves" means, I just know that lots of folks left D&D. Tons of posters over at rpg.net, for instance. Most of them it seems, sometimes. And some of them are still pissed at 3e even today. All the gamers I knew in college.

Anyway, I'm not claiming my opinion is backed up by irrefutable evidence. But it's not just anecdotal either. It's pretty much the opinion of most games designers before 3e came out and changed everything with the OGL and a decent ruleset.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I may do just that. Actually, I'd probably have to post multiple "fixes" for different design goals. What I'd recommend for house rules and what I'd recommend for a hypothetical Fouth Edition are two different things.

Well, stick with your house rules to begin with; I doubt many of us here will be directly consulted for a future 4th edition. The most important thing is to get started on something.