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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5418941" data-attributes="member: 80487">Try almost every thing prior to RuneQuest, and a good deal since!If you consider getting 5 points in Champions to be entirely different from getting a 'level', then I can only wonder what criteria WotC-D&amp;D meets. In 3e and 4e, 'levels' are mainly similar chances to choose from a menu of boosts. If the picks were a bit freer, or the &quot;level benefits&quot; dropped, then it would be a hard sell to call 3e or 4e a &quot;class based&quot; game!As things stand, I don't see how you can include them while excluding so many of the designs that introduced such techniques to the gamers who became WotC's designers.I'll call it bog standard. Even the &quot;indie rules-light narrative-centric&quot; games tend to get that way by reducing everything to a variation on the original D&amp;D combat system.It's not just that the games arose in the wargaming hobby, or that the chief addition to the wargame mix was -- and remains -- an injection of borrowings from generally violent genre fiction. (The game genre taken as a whole basically resembles a pile of sweaty Manly Manhood Action paperbacks, which bowdlerization often just makes creepy to my eye. Even video games seem to have more range.)It is not just that even &quot;professional&quot; game designers tend to follow conservative conventional wisdom, to &quot;do it the way it's always been done&quot; because &quot;that's what the market expects&quot;.No, it is also that when we were making up RPGs back in the '70s, without an established tradition as to what makes up an RPG, combat happened in practice to be an aspect that was more conducive to the formulation and application of stereotyped rules than were some others.GDW's En Garde (1975), and FGU's Bunnies &amp; Burrows (1976) and Chivalry &amp; Sorcery (1977), stood out early as having more rules systems. It might not be just coincidence that they had more tightly defined game premises.D&amp;D had -- in supplements and magazines -- a whole raft of rules for other topics. However, D&amp;D games had different settings and emphases depending on the interests of the participants. Even the Dungeon Masters Guide was a pretty well-laden buffet -- but very much attuned to the campaign of Mr. Gygax.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 5418941, member: 80487"] Try almost every thing prior to [b]RuneQuest[/b], and a good deal since! If you consider getting 5 points in Champions to be entirely different from getting a 'level', then I can only wonder what criteria WotC-D&D meets. In 3e and 4e, 'levels' are mainly similar chances to choose from a menu of boosts. If the picks were a bit freer, or the "level benefits" dropped, then it would be a hard sell to call 3e or 4e a "class based" game! As things stand, I don't see how you can include them while excluding so many of the designs that introduced such techniques to the gamers who became WotC's designers. I'll call it bog standard. Even the "indie rules-light narrative-centric" games tend to get that way by reducing [i]everything[/i] to a variation on the original D&D combat system. It's not just that the games arose in the wargaming hobby, or that the chief addition to the wargame mix was -- and remains -- an injection of borrowings from generally violent genre fiction. (The game genre taken as a whole basically resembles a pile of sweaty Manly Manhood Action paperbacks, which bowdlerization often just makes creepy to my eye. Even video games seem to have more range.) It is not just that even "professional" game designers tend to follow conservative conventional wisdom, to "do it the way it's always been done" because "that's what the market expects". No, it is also that when we were making up RPGs back in the '70s, [i]without[/i] an established tradition as to what makes up an RPG, combat happened in practice to be an aspect that was more conducive to the formulation and application of stereotyped rules than were some others. GDW's [b]En Garde[/b] (1975), and FGU's [b]Bunnies & Burrows[/b] (1976) and [b]Chivalry & Sorcery[/b] (1977), stood out early as having more rules systems. It might not be just coincidence that they had more tightly defined game premises. [b]D&D[/b] had -- in supplements and magazines -- a whole raft of rules for other topics. However, D&D games had different settings and emphases depending on the interests of the participants. Even the [i]Dungeon Masters Guide[/i] was a pretty well-laden buffet -- but very much attuned to the campaign of Mr. Gygax. [/QUOTE]

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