NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 6467324" data-attributes="member: 6779310">Player portability is far more an issue now than early D&D (pre-79). People are more likely to move cities and/or areas of town than in the 1970's. And are more likely to move repeatedly. Not just "move to college; move to post college job's city, stay there until retirement"...Players have easier access to authoritative answers than in the 70's. As in, "what is this supposed to mean, Mr. Designer?"Players have easier access to players in other groups than in the 70's. As in, internet boards.Players have easier access to information about how various other groups are playing.Organized play results in more participation in multiple different DM's groups, and in some cases, in the occasional guest DM.A widespread convention scene also increases participation in multiple DM's games.D&D started to have major griping about the mechanics when players started to reach out to groups beyond their close circle via the nets in the 80's (usenet, Fidonet, and later, WWIVnet, and the collegiate era of the internet, which ran roughly '88-'95).The more DM's one can reasonably expect to play a single ruleset with, and the more players who are moving and need to find new groups, the more important consistency of rules becomes to prevent widespread dissatisfaction with the game.It's fine to have optional rules, and such... but having concrete core mechanics (and the social rules ones in the DMG are pretty well done; I'd have preferred a 5 step rather than 3 step scale of initial states) means that, should SB play at PN's table rather than mine, he knows that the basic mechanics of the TNs to make an action happen by social skills are in fact going to still apply, and won't nerf his character concept.</blockquote>

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