MerakSpielman
First Post
Re: Perfect subject line...
If it's not clothed, is it greased?
Lord Zardoz said:
If it's not clothed, is it greased?
D&D 3E: the Death of Imagination?
- Thread starter Tom Cashel
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Tom Cashel
First Post
barsoomcore said:
As I said, there's probably a grain of truth in that. Mine is not an unchangeable mind. But I still think that, to some extent, 3E's rule-heavy format lends itself to the problem I describe.
barsoomcore said:
Man, you are so wrong!
GO RANGERS! (Not that I think they'll win the Cup...I just want them to make the damn playoffs!)The Sigil said:
The trade-off, is, of course, that it puts a bit more of a burden on you as DM with regard to your rules knowledge; you have to bone up on the rules a little better than usual because without the rulebooks, you have no "safety net" to work with.
Yep. But I'd be glad to do more reading for game sessions that I was looking forward to...y'know?
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
It's always a big complicated mess, isn't it? It's my fault, it's my players' fault, it's Monte Cook's fault, it's barsoomcore's fault...Tom Cashel said:
Okay, it's my fault. I admit it. I've been playing demotivating tapes in your room at night. Sorry about that, don't know what came over me.
Must have been the lard.
I feel your pain, Tom Cashel.
I've put D&D on the back burner for a while for some of the reasons you stated. I do find that 3rd ed promotes rules lawyering, it is partly a problem with my players, but I also feel it is a general problem with the game-if it wasn't, then why do these kind of threads pop up every once in a while?
I find myself constantly arguing over the finer points of the rules with my players, to the point where the game is a series of book referencing. If I were to ask most of my players why their character did something, instead of hearing 'because his background makes him prone to like/dislike this/that, or that is just what he would do in character' I hear, because when i have this feat in this circumstance I get a +2 to this action.
I think next time I run I will try the no books at the table method, and perhaps go back to being more of a dm-nazi:
"That's the way it is because *I* said so"
I don't think this becomes unfair with the players perceptions, because if you continually make judgement calls, the players get used to the world not being black and white.
I've put D&D on the back burner for a while for some of the reasons you stated. I do find that 3rd ed promotes rules lawyering, it is partly a problem with my players, but I also feel it is a general problem with the game-if it wasn't, then why do these kind of threads pop up every once in a while?
I find myself constantly arguing over the finer points of the rules with my players, to the point where the game is a series of book referencing. If I were to ask most of my players why their character did something, instead of hearing 'because his background makes him prone to like/dislike this/that, or that is just what he would do in character' I hear, because when i have this feat in this circumstance I get a +2 to this action.
I think next time I run I will try the no books at the table method, and perhaps go back to being more of a dm-nazi:
"That's the way it is because *I* said so"
I don't think this becomes unfair with the players perceptions, because if you continually make judgement calls, the players get used to the world not being black and white.
pogre
Legend
navriin said:
As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
Godwin's Law
Tom Cashel
First Post
pogre said:
What a Hitlerish thing to say.
coyote6
Adventurer
I see where you're coming from, but I disagree with the subject line's assertion. IMO, it's an interaction between you, your group, and the game. (FWIW, somebody in my group once said something similar about Vampire, IIRC.)
Fifteen years ago, I might have used the subject line about AD&D 1e (or Basic D&D, etc.). It wouldn't have been true, but it might've been something I'd have said. Ten years ago, I burned out on Champions; I'd learned enough by then, though, not to blame it all on the rules.
I'd second most of the suggestions made: have you & your group let go of the books a bit, let someone else GM for a while, and try a different system for a while. I almost always have more than one campaign running concurrently, in different game systems and/or different genres. I'll switch back & forth between GMing them; I think it helps me avoid burnout on any particular thing. Plus, other people GM -- it was me and one other guy, but with D&D 3e, two other people are GMing at least semi-regularly.
Oh, and smack the argumentative guy upside the head with a copy of a nice weighty hardback rulebook. Hero 4e is good, and the original 1e DMG is quite tough, albeit not as hefty.
Fifteen years ago, I might have used the subject line about AD&D 1e (or Basic D&D, etc.). It wouldn't have been true, but it might've been something I'd have said. Ten years ago, I burned out on Champions; I'd learned enough by then, though, not to blame it all on the rules.
I'd second most of the suggestions made: have you & your group let go of the books a bit, let someone else GM for a while, and try a different system for a while. I almost always have more than one campaign running concurrently, in different game systems and/or different genres. I'll switch back & forth between GMing them; I think it helps me avoid burnout on any particular thing. Plus, other people GM -- it was me and one other guy, but with D&D 3e, two other people are GMing at least semi-regularly.
Oh, and smack the argumentative guy upside the head with a copy of a nice weighty hardback rulebook. Hero 4e is good, and the original 1e DMG is quite tough, albeit not as hefty.
officeronin
First Post
My group limits the rules we use (core, WotC splats, Quint), and also has house rules. On the fly, we are pretty laid back in our rules lawyering. So, if I climbing the angry, clothed giant is a DC 30 climb check that provokes an AoO (when, of course, the climb check is 25), my players will naturally assume it's because the giant is wearing a skin-tight bodysuit rather than the loose clothing typical to giants.
We do lots of goofy stuff to keep ourselves on our toes and out of ruts:
Last week, everyone rolled a d12, and that roll determined your "primary" class (the class you have the most levels in) with barbarian being 1, bard 2, cleric 3,...., wizard 11 and specialist wizard being 12. Then we all rolled a d6, with 1-3 being one class (but you could add a prestige class -- just no other classes from the PH), 4 and 5 being 2 classes from the PH, and 6 being 3 or more classes, all from the PH. Everyone then makes a 10th level PC based on those rolls (which were all secret), each of us doing the best we could to make an effective PC. Then we flipped a coin -- heads, we passed it to the left, tails we passed it to the right. It was a nice one-shot to try to get us out of our rut.
We've also done rotation DMing. We set up a timer for one hour, and the first person DMs for one hour (running their PC as an NPC), and then switches the DMing to the next person for their hour. It quickly became a game of "what sort of wacky, tough-to-adjudicate situation can I engineer to force the next guy to try to deal with it". Hilarious.
Some of the "rut" is built into D+D -- it's a function of class-based games. (Please note that I'm not saying that skill-based games are superior or inferior to class-based games -- I don't want to get into that discussion. Suffice it to say that they each have their benefits and drawbacks.) If you want to take a break from D+D (to get away from that rut), I'd say go for a skill-based system.
OfficeRonin
We do lots of goofy stuff to keep ourselves on our toes and out of ruts:
Last week, everyone rolled a d12, and that roll determined your "primary" class (the class you have the most levels in) with barbarian being 1, bard 2, cleric 3,...., wizard 11 and specialist wizard being 12. Then we all rolled a d6, with 1-3 being one class (but you could add a prestige class -- just no other classes from the PH), 4 and 5 being 2 classes from the PH, and 6 being 3 or more classes, all from the PH. Everyone then makes a 10th level PC based on those rolls (which were all secret), each of us doing the best we could to make an effective PC. Then we flipped a coin -- heads, we passed it to the left, tails we passed it to the right. It was a nice one-shot to try to get us out of our rut.
We've also done rotation DMing. We set up a timer for one hour, and the first person DMs for one hour (running their PC as an NPC), and then switches the DMing to the next person for their hour. It quickly became a game of "what sort of wacky, tough-to-adjudicate situation can I engineer to force the next guy to try to deal with it". Hilarious.
Some of the "rut" is built into D+D -- it's a function of class-based games. (Please note that I'm not saying that skill-based games are superior or inferior to class-based games -- I don't want to get into that discussion. Suffice it to say that they each have their benefits and drawbacks.) If you want to take a break from D+D (to get away from that rut), I'd say go for a skill-based system.
OfficeRonin
I have to say, I agree with Tom. Not on everything -- well, rereading his first post, not on most things -- for instance, I absolutely disagree that 3E stifles creativity (check out my story hour!). I also don't think that 3E and rules-lawyering munchkinism go hand-in-hand . . .
But I do think that the first can help breed the second. Not always. But it can. And it's f'ing irritating.
As it implies in that there Robin Laws book, the more crunchiness there is, the more players are going to want to minmax -- because they CAN minmax. There's a strict set of rules out there allowing them to do so. They can plot their character's advancement from level 1 to level 20, and woe betide the DM who wants to change what a spell or magic item does along that path. ("I would have never become a fighter if I knew that you weren't allowing Great Cleave/Whirlwind/Bag o' Snails! You didn't tell me during character generation! I want to be able to completely redo my character!")
Or perhaps, in this situation, "Why can't I have a ring of improved invisibility? If you follow the magic-item creation rules in Tome & Blood, I should be able to make an item that does this and this for this much, and you never told me that I couldn't . . . it's in the rules!"
Other systems wouldn't necessarily give them that option -- 3E does, or seems to, IMO. And I think that's what Tom is bitching about.
It doesn't have to be that way, of course. Pcat's game doesn't seem to suffer that problem -- but he's an extremely experienced GM and his group is older than dirt. I don't have that problem, but I told my (current) group from the beginning that magic item creation rules were different, some spells would be different, and that in general I wanted to add a little mystery back to the magic of D&D, so I wouldn't be telling them all the changes up front.
Again, no problem -- it's been working out great.
But not all DMs have the foresight to think of all the things they'd want to change, or an adult (mentally as well as physically) gaming group, or years and years and years of GM'ing experience, or a nauseatingly in-depth knowledge of all of the rules, or the will to let their players know who is the final arbiter. For those DMs . . . well, I think Tom has a point.
3E isn't DM-friendly until and unless you bitchslap it into being DM-friendly. There can be problem players in any RPG setting, but the immense crunchiness of 3E makes it easier to be a problem player in some ways. Can we all agree on that?
But I do think that the first can help breed the second. Not always. But it can. And it's f'ing irritating.
As it implies in that there Robin Laws book, the more crunchiness there is, the more players are going to want to minmax -- because they CAN minmax. There's a strict set of rules out there allowing them to do so. They can plot their character's advancement from level 1 to level 20, and woe betide the DM who wants to change what a spell or magic item does along that path. ("I would have never become a fighter if I knew that you weren't allowing Great Cleave/Whirlwind/Bag o' Snails! You didn't tell me during character generation! I want to be able to completely redo my character!")
Or perhaps, in this situation, "Why can't I have a ring of improved invisibility? If you follow the magic-item creation rules in Tome & Blood, I should be able to make an item that does this and this for this much, and you never told me that I couldn't . . . it's in the rules!"
Other systems wouldn't necessarily give them that option -- 3E does, or seems to, IMO. And I think that's what Tom is bitching about.
It doesn't have to be that way, of course. Pcat's game doesn't seem to suffer that problem -- but he's an extremely experienced GM and his group is older than dirt
. I don't have that problem, but I told my (current) group from the beginning that magic item creation rules were different, some spells would be different, and that in general I wanted to add a little mystery back to the magic of D&D, so I wouldn't be telling them all the changes up front. Again, no problem -- it's been working out great.
But not all DMs have the foresight to think of all the things they'd want to change, or an adult (mentally as well as physically) gaming group, or years and years and years of GM'ing experience, or a nauseatingly in-depth knowledge of all of the rules, or the will to let their players know who is the final arbiter. For those DMs . . . well, I think Tom has a point.
3E isn't DM-friendly until and unless you bitchslap it into being DM-friendly. There can be problem players in any RPG setting, but the immense crunchiness of 3E makes it easier to be a problem player in some ways. Can we all agree on that?
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