D&D SHOULD NOT have a defined atmosphere/style *Semi Rant*

[Sundragon2012]

I have read it. You're contradicting yourself. Perhaps you should self-edit before you complain about people not understanding your brilliant thesis.

I don't know what your problem is, your responses have been rude from the opening and I can't see any purpose in that. I have not been mean spirited or condescending in any way so I don'y know where you get off with this attitude. There is no excuse for rudeness unless you yourself have been personally attacked.


Chris

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Actually, if the main concern is the christmas tree approach to higher levels.. you can blame it on a problem that has plaqued DnD in all its incartations since day one.

The fact of the matter is that any game exceeding 14th level gets broken/unbalanced/whatever. The core rules assume a certain $$ = power equivilent and uses that to balance out encounters. At low levels it works just fine.

You want low magic feel where miracles are literally miraculous? stay under 14th level. Its really simple. The hard part is understanding that a good game can be had at these levels and you don't need to be playing a 'save the world each adventure' kind of game.

The next hardest part is crafting challenging and heroic adventures with the lower CR beings. You can't simply pull in a Delkry to beat up on the heroes.. he is left to being a manipulator is the shadows of the plot.

I will also admit, high level play opens the game to numerous unplanned plot changes.. at least unplanned by you. It becomes very simple to suddenly change the entire venue at one players whim. This is the second reason I avoid high level play.
So much easier to predict which way the players will go when the options are limited. This in turn means I can spend my creative energy on a creating better adventures.

A man's gots to know his limitations


Altho I have to agree with Sundragon2012 on two points:
> complaining about the difficulties of balancing a game =/ bad DM
> complaining about a rule set does not deserve a 'so go play something else'

Both those comments are pointless and ignore the fact that if Sundragon2012 did not enjoy this hobby of ours, he would not be bothering to complain about it!

Anywho.. going 10-7, catch y'all on the flip.

{edit.. one slow typing Greybeard chiming in... It does seem that a great many come forth to defend any imposition on 'Mama DnD' whenever her means of making a living are brought into the conversation... }

 

[molonel]

Maybe your right but that is because I think my rant is more about feel than any singular thing. Sometimes rants are viceral rather than logical. Perhaps it was more how I played 1e and 2e than what the feel really was ... I am not arguing for a return to the 1e and 2e days. I am arguing that the core books of 3.X should be game style and atmosphere neutral NO MATTER what the style of 1e or 2e were supposed to be. Maybe it never was.....and maybe it was all in my old grognard head where D&D was just a batch of rules and I never used the names in name spells as I thought that would be stupid outside of greyahwk.

Fair enough.

 

[Sundragon2012]

You're confusing D&D with d20.

D&D is not a rules system. It is a game. Games have a particular style. Playing Monopoly is different than playing Candy Land.

d20 is the rules system. And d20 has no real default flavor.

You want to make your game out of basic ingredients, use d20. Not D&D.

That may indeed be true.

I think I will look into Green Ronin's True 20 system. We'll see.


Chris

 

[Quasqueton]

Oh yeah....and for all you greybeards who agree with me in this little rant o' mine....nothing like really chiming in to fend off the hoary hosts as I struggled to stand upon my shaky, largely emotional, ground and was battered left and right by the power of true believers.

Love to tell you this: the majority of posters on this message board are "greybeards" who have played all/many of the earlier editions, and now choose to play the current edition because they like it best. There are some relatively few here who wear their hate on their sleeve, but they (and you) are mightily outnumbered.

83.41% prefer the current edition
10.49% prefer an earlier edition

Your patently false and foolish statements have already been debunked by numerous people who know better. Now you're begging for some of the 10% to help you against the 80+%. Are you so foolish as to think you would magically change people's knowledge of the facts to believe your silly claims?

Quasqueton

 

[Crothian]

That may indeed be true.

I think I will look into Green Ronin's True 20 system. We'll see.

It is a very nice system, but like normal d20 has its own set of problems and changes in styles that might niot fit with what you want

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't know what your problem is, your responses have been rude from the opening and I can't see any purpose in that. I have not been mean spirited or condescending in any way so I don'y know where you get off with this attitude. There is no excuse for rudeness unless you yourself have been personally attacked.

That was not my intention, and I apologize, but I will respectfully submit that telling me that I clearly have not read your posts and not to reply until I have certainly read like an attack to me. Likewise, as has been pointed out, your characterization of who 3E appeals to is hardly friendly, especially considering that's who's reading your posts here.

If you aren't interested in a spirited exchange of ideas, you probably should post your rants on a blog with comments turned off, rather than a message board, though.

(Oh, and given that I've been playing since the summer of 1979, I think I count as one of the greybeards you seem to think would be in natural sympathy with your point.)

 

[Sundragon2012]

Love to tell you this: the majority of posters on this message board are "greybeards" who have played all/many of the earlier editions, and now choose to play the current edition because they like it best. There are some relatively few here who wear their hate on their sleeve, but they (and you) are mightily outnumbered.

83.41% prefer the current edition
10.49% prefer an earlier edition

Your patently false and foolish statements have already been debunked by numerous people who know better. Now you're begging for some of the 10% to help you against the 80+%. Are you so foolish as to think you would magically change people's knowledge of the facts to believe your silly claims?

Quasqueton

What the hell is it that drives folks to attack a simple tongue in cheek comment that actually admitted to the weakness of my argument:

nothing like really chiming in to fend off the hoary hosts as I struggled to stand upon my shaky, largely emotional, ground and was battered left and right by the power of true believers.

If you can't see that there was a playful and slightly self-deprecating quality to what I wrote, then I think that you are taking this and yourself way too seriously.


Chris

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It is a very nice system, but like normal d20 has its own set of problems and changes in styles that might niot fit with what you want

Getting it now, in the PDF form, it has no setting to it at all, really, so it's probably as close as one can get to a systemless D20 game system. How much spell/arcana information is in the PDF, though?

 

[Sundragon2012]

That was not my intention, and I apologize, but I will respectfully submit that telling me that I clearly have not read your posts and not to reply until I have certainly read like an attack to me. Likewise, as has been pointed out, your characterization of who 3E appeals to is hardly friendly, especially considering that's who's reading your posts here.

If you aren't interested in a spirited exchange of ideas, you probably should post your rants on a blog with comments turned off, rather than a message board, though.

(Oh, and given that I've been playing since the summer of 1979, I think I count as one of the greybeards you seem to think would be in natural sympathy with your point.)

Well that was the politest way I had of defending myself and attempting to deflect a pointless argument. I didn't mean to imply that you weren't reading what I wrote, more along the lines of your passion for the subject was maybe reading more into it than I intended.

That's all, no big deal.

my greybeard reference is a JOKE!

It is not to be referenced as ammo against my argument because within the post is an admission that there was a certain weakness to the argument because I realized I was speaking more emotionally than logically. When one's passion for something cools, that happens from time to time.

Chris