D&D 5E D&DN going down the wrong path for everyone.

[Hussar]

I think AD&D does support a style of tactical combat. When I was trying to run 4e without mini's or a mat I still wanted to do tactical combats. I realized that I could do very similar things in AD&D or other games without a mat. It takes a lot more DM adjudication, handing out any possible to hit/damage bonuses, asking for appropriate ability checks and using much more detailed descriptions about what is in the area. In many cases players would naturally try and exploit the terrain.

For example I ran a Moldvay basic/expert game of the Isle of Dread recently and I would describe the jungle and the vines and some interesting terrain of fallen trees and torn up ground. My players would ask about and try things like climb upon the fallen trees or swing from vines or baseball slide under/into a copse of thorny bushes.

There is some hint that this kind of thing was intended, the AD&D players handbook example of play the thief slinks around the battlefield until they can get in position to backstab the illusionist. In Moldvay basic example of play the party arranges themselves into a battle formation to protect the spell casters.

I think much more detailed tactical play is possible.

Well there's the trick though. Since virtually none of that is actually covered in the mechanics, you're pretty much just making it up as you go along. And, yes, there is some tactical play in AD&D. Obviously you cannot remove tactics entirely. Just like you cannot remove the strategic/logistical level entirely either.

But, I don't think it's terribly controversial to say that one edition focuses more heavily on one aspect than another. The level of strategy involved in high level 3e play is such that it's not unreasonable to have spreadsheets to calculate your modifiers. Half a dozen different long term buff effects and you have a huge number of interactions. Particularly since a number of the buffs affect other buffs.

This is a level of strategic play that you just don't see in 4e. You typically can't since it's so difficult to pre-buff in 4e. And you typically don't see it in AD&D either since most of the buffs don't exist in the spell lists.

It's not that one element is absent in any edition. It's more that one element is more strongly focused on.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm getting pretty tired of the "innovation" buzzword as if it's always a good thing. Particular innovations are no good if they can't sustain their business model on them.

Sure, and each particular innovation that 4e made was good If you cannot innovate because heaven forbid there's going to be SOMEONE offended by any possible innovation you make then you're dead, plain and simple.

Well, that was just my opinion on APs - they seem to be pretty popular overall. So much so that Paizo now has miniatures lines for specific APs (Rise of the Runelords & Shattered Star, so far)

And, you also have the fantasy tradition of multiple books in a series - the DragonLance books for D&D specific, but Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice & Fire, The Wheel of Time, the Sword of Truth, the Raymond Feist series' whose names I'm forgetting now, etc, etc. No reason why they can't do similar with adventures.

Oh, I LIKE APs, and I think most of the Paizo ones are probably pretty decent overall. I was just more commenting on the difficulty of sustaining the story in that format. Personally I am usually more comfortable with a less strictly focused campaign just for that reason. Its good if it all ties in together a bit, but its OK if some chapters aren't really all that related to each other plot-wise.

Well, let's be honest here, the game has always had tiers though. It was pretty explicit in AD&D, where you got a keep and followers. 3e had Epic, but, again, unofficially, there were three tiers as well - low middle and high level play. All three of which play out pretty differently. 4e, IMO, simply codified what was already going on in 3e.

I mean, in 3e, you cannot run a single style of adventure for all levels. It just won't work. The resources that a high level party has invalidates some low level adventures. Murder mystery springs to mind. You can run a fairly stock, locked room murder mystery in 3e up to about 6th level. But at 16th? I don't think so. At that point, the PC's can talk directly to gods and ask questions. A murder mystery for a 16th level party is going to be very, very different than one for a 6th level party.

So, is it really a bad thing to codify tiers?

Exactly. I'm not against it being a little less strictly codified than in 4e, maybe, but I'm not really sure how to do that. I guess the only thing I can really think of would be to have EDs and PPs work more like PrCs where you can take them at whatever level you meet the requirements. It isn't a huge difference though in practice.

I think AD&D does support a style of tactical combat. When I was trying to run 4e without mini's or a mat I still wanted to do tactical combats. I realized that I could do very similar things in AD&D or other games without a mat. It takes a lot more DM adjudication, handing out any possible to hit/damage bonuses, asking for appropriate ability checks and using much more detailed descriptions about what is in the area. In many cases players would naturally try and exploit the terrain.

For example I ran a Moldvay basic/expert game of the Isle of Dread recently and I would describe the jungle and the vines and some interesting terrain of fallen trees and torn up ground. My players would ask about and try things like climb upon the fallen trees or swing from vines or baseball slide under/into a copse of thorny bushes.

There is some hint that this kind of thing was intended, the AD&D players handbook example of play the thief slinks around the battlefield until they can get in position to backstab the illusionist. In Moldvay basic example of play the party arranges themselves into a battle formation to protect the spell casters.

I think much more detailed tactical play is possible.

Well, yes, of course D&D has always had a level of tactical play. There are clear rules for how you are supposed to measure ranges and movement, etc in combat, particularly in AD&D. So it clearly was intended that you could use a 'battle mat' and figures/markers. Even without actually being that precise you could always at least refer to those rules and the terrain etc rules to explain how different tactical factors would affect combat.

IMHO the problems with AD&D vintage D&D's tactical concepts were; movement rates were so high relative to how often you could attack that in most cases tactics were washed out, there was little trade-off as well, say between moving and attacking, which can be a consideration in 4e for instance. Another problem was hit points were low enough that there wasn't a lot of value in any type of condition/debuff, you just kill the guy, except where you had AoEs that were large and easily hit lots of opponents or produced SOD effects. SOMETIMES tactics were useful, a lot of times it just didn't matter much.

 

[pming]

Hiya

Well there's the trick though. Since virtually none of that is actually covered in the mechanics, you're pretty much just making it up as you go along. And, yes, there is some tactical play in AD&D. Obviously you cannot remove tactics entirely. Just like you cannot remove the strategic/logistical level entirely either.
**snip**

(BOLD by me)

Well, uh, yeah. That's kinda the *entire* premise of an RPG, isn't it? To use your imaginations to make stuff up and have fun? A superior DM is fair and consistent in his rulings. New DM's don't need to be hand-held for every little bonus or penalty for every conceivable situation, and game systems that try to do just that will only succeed in creating DM's and players who will never truly discover the joy's of RPG'ing. Guidelines, sure. Broad selection of suggested bonus/penalty factors, ok. But in my opinion, less is more.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hiya



(BOLD by me)

Well, uh, yeah. That's kinda the *entire* premise of an RPG, isn't it? To use your imaginations to make stuff up and have fun? A superior DM is fair and consistent in his rulings. New DM's don't need to be hand-held for every little bonus or penalty for every conceivable situation, and game systems that try to do just that will only succeed in creating DM's and players who will never truly discover the joy's of RPG'ing. Guidelines, sure. Broad selection of suggested bonus/penalty factors, ok. But in my opinion, less is more.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

One might then query why it is there are rules at all....

Clearly the purpose of rules, one purpose at least, is to provide structures and procedures which can be employed by the players to regulate and model in-game activities. When the rules leave large gaps that's a point where they aren't doing their job. The trick is to create a set of rules which both supports anything the players want to do, AND puts as few restrictions and presuppositions out there to impede them. The problem with AD&D was you never really knew how it was going to work. Even with my friends who were decent, even excellent, DMs there were always issues. I can remember many "boo DM" moments, but I have none to share about 4e.

IMHO 3e (3.5 more than 3.0) tried to systematically categorize things and cover everything in detail. This didn't work. It was too restrictive, created too many little rules that nobody could easily remember or master, many of those rules were stupid (game designers aren't physicists, doctors, etc), and even with masses of rules 90% of the time the specific situation wasn't quite covered exactly. 4e is much more generalized, removing a lot of overly specific cruft, making it clearer how you handle situations in general, and emphasizing that fun is the goal of the rules, not simulation. Powers are a lot more common but specific, yet they are also cleanly placed within a greater framework, making it easy to adjust things for specific situations.

The point is there is a drastic difference between 3.5's masses of specific rules and 4e's FAR fewer more general and integrated ones. One trips you up all the time, the other gives you a tool for every situation but doesn't mandate how it will be used.

 

[Hussar]

Hiya



(BOLD by me)

Well, uh, yeah. That's kinda the *entire* premise of an RPG, isn't it? To use your imaginations to make stuff up and have fun? A superior DM is fair and consistent in his rulings. New DM's don't need to be hand-held for every little bonus or penalty for every conceivable situation, and game systems that try to do just that will only succeed in creating DM's and players who will never truly discover the joy's of RPG'ing. Guidelines, sure. Broad selection of suggested bonus/penalty factors, ok. But in my opinion, less is more.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

So, if I sit down in your AD&D game and say that I'm going to shout at my ally and he's going to strike on my turn, in addition to his regular attacks, you'd have no problems with that? How about he also adds in half my level in bonus damage?

That's why tactical level rules are a very good thing if you want to play a tactical level game.

AD&D has fantastic strategic level rules - hirelings and simplicity to be able to run combats with dozens of combatants in a very short period of time. But, it doesn't handle tactical level particularly well. There's a reason that things like the weapon vs armor table get ejected by a lot of tables. It's a strategic level decision (which weapon should I be proficient in) brought down to a tactical level that is just way, way too fiddly.

 

[adembroski]

When did we start considering balance within compartments rather than the game as a whole?

Seriously, I was not a part of this shift. I don't remember it. I've always thought of balance as being relative to the game as a whole. There were bards, who provided an immense benefit outside of combat, but were fairly limited in it, and barbarians, who were mostly killing machines with little benefit beyond. When did we start saying they have to have equal contribution to each area of the game individually?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

When did we start considering balance within compartments rather than the game as a whole?

Seriously, I was not a part of this shift. I don't remember it. I've always thought of balance as being relative to the game as a whole. There were bards, who provided an immense benefit outside of combat, but were fairly limited in it, and barbarians, who were mostly killing machines with little benefit beyond. When did we start saying they have to have equal contribution to each area of the game individually?

Characters, and classes in D&D, need to be able to contribute with roughly EQUAL WEIGHT. It isn't mandatory that it all be in the same exact way. HOWEVER, in a game like D&D where 90% of tables will put a good chunk of emphasis on combat, it isn't vastly advantageous to have a lot of options for stripping your character of combat prowess, almost regardless of what you get instead. The fact that the very bard you use as an example is the standing example of an ineffective character class in everything short of 4e just confirms that.

 

[Balesir]

When did we start considering balance within compartments rather than the game as a whole?

Seriously, I was not a part of this shift. I don't remember it. I've always thought of balance as being relative to the game as a whole. There were bards, who provided an immense benefit outside of combat, but were fairly limited in it, and barbarians, who were mostly killing machines with little benefit beyond. When did we start saying they have to have equal contribution to each area of the game individually?

Combat ability, in particular, inevitably has a particular weight because, as any Orlanthi will tell you, other options may come and go, but violence is always an option!

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The fact that the very bard you use as an example is the standing example of an ineffective character class in everything short of 4e just confirms that.

The first edition bard says hi. Then he kills the 4e bard and takes his stuff.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I disagree with this. Contributing is varied concept and is not something that is easily seen as a 2 + 2 = 4. Sometimes I make characters based on concept and not "contributing factor". I don't want to have classes pigeon holed into specific roles because of the designer's idea of usefulness.

If i am hitting a monster, aiding a fellow adventurer, casting a buff, healing etc then I am contributing. Stop trying to stick give us that magic number that represents whether or not we are contributing. Name me one class in all the history of D&D that has never contributed in one way shape or form.