Defining its own Mythology

[Rechan]

So your argument boils down to "I don't like it, so nobody else should get to like it?"

No. My argument boils down to "I don't like it, but I manage just fine, I fail to see why you can't."

I don't expect the PHB to give me everything I want. I expect there to be things that I'm going to roll my eyes at, or sigh and say "I'm going to have to put up with that when I sit at someone else's table." I accept that.

 

[pawsplay]

Well, it can be D&D's thing, too.

And with stronger reliance on archetype and more smoothness than GURPS is really generally capable of.

Oh? Not familiar with the 3e-4e explosion of premade templates?

 

[resistor]

No. My argument boils down to "I don't like it, but I manage just fine, I fail to see why you can't."

For many reasons: I don't have the time to rewrite large chunks of the core books. I don't have players whose lives revolve around D&D: teaching them the new edition will be MUCH harder if I have to teach them "errata" at the same time.

It sounds like your desires for a fantasy RPG are poorly suited to D&D. I don't believe my games are. They're definitely runnable in 3.5e without any major rewriting of the core.

In short, I feel that my games are pretty solidly within the realm of the "normal 3.5e D&D experience," but they won't be within the realm of a "normal 4e D&D experience." And, honestly, it's just not worth the effort to retrofit 4e to it, when I can just save the time (and the money) by continuing to use 3.5e.

 

[rounser]

Huh. I thought flexibility and hodgepodge, simulating anything, was the thing of GURPS.

Like politics between left wing and right wing, there's a middle ground between "not enough implied setting" and "too specific an implied setting" where everyone's sorta happy. D&D is currently moving away from being somewhere around this sweet spot by the look of it.

 

[jasin]

Like politics between left wing and right wing, there's a middle ground between "not enough implied setting" and "too specific an implied setting" where everyone's sorta happy. D&D is currently moving away from being somewhere around this sweet spot by the look of it.

Like politics, I'm not sure that many people agree where this sweet spot is.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Like politics, I'm not sure that many people agree where this sweet spot is.

Agreed.

Despite being a fan of Tolkien's work, I'm happy to see new races - tieflings and dragonborn - in the PHB which aren't Middle-Earth-compatible. There is nothing setting neutral about the old array of races and classes; it's just that we are all so familiar with the implied setting that we no longer pay any attention to it.

 

[jasin]

Despite being a fan of Tolkien's work, I'm happy to see new races - tieflings and dragonborn - in the PHB which aren't Middle-Earth-compatible. There is nothing setting neutral about the old array of races and classes; it's just that we are all so familiar with the implied setting that we no longer pay any attention to it.

Right. For someone who grew up reading Leiber, Vance, Moorcock, Howard (which I'd consider central inspirations for D&D, just like Tolkien), woody elves and stoneworker dwarves are about as foreign as dragonmen and probably more foreign than demon-blooded people.

 

[Hussar]

The problem is, and this has been discussed at length as well, is that D&D doesn't do Howard, Vance, et al very well at all. It's never done genre emulation worth a damn.

It's far and away too high magic to do Conan. It's far and away too grim and gritty to do Tolkien. Think about it, trying to recreate either books in D&D core rules is pretty much impossible. There's a very good reason why we have a separate Conan d20 set of rules that's pretty far removed from D&D. That's because D&D doesn't do it very well out of the box.

And, IMO, it never, ever did. You had to do massive arm twisting to do low magic in D&D. The standard party alone contained at least two spell casters, meaning that just about every encounter featured magic (and that's true in any edition).

I've learned over the years that letting D&D just be itself works the best. If you want D&D to do anything specific, you need to pretty much rewrite a good chunk of the PHB and DMG. Tolkien doesn't work because of spell casting wizard PC's. ((We need to get this ring to Mount Doom. Teleport, plink! End of story))

If D&D is going to be its own thing, then why not actually start from that point of view? Instead of a half assed system that doesn't really emulate anything, why not go whole assed and create something new?

Yes, that means that Dryads get yoinked out of their mythological roots. Now they are capable of several roles instead of wasting page count in the Monster Manual. You can plunk one into multiple adventures, in a multiple of roles, because she's no longer just the sort of helpful, can't move too far, fairy wench. Yay! Screw mythology. Gimme something I can use in the game, or cut it out completely.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm with RC on this one. D&D is at it's greatest when it can ride the coattails of a million and one other motifs, throw them together, stir them up, and see what comes out. To take the dryad from Greek myth and make it useful in a game with medieval knights and cthonian monsters and pokemon trainers (for instance) would be a WONDERFUL use of the D&D game, and comes to reflect most astutely the reason I grew to love the game in the first place. With this game and my friends, I could tell ANY story.

Getting rid of those things means that D&D has to stand on it's own creative legs.

And if those creative legs are compound words and twig-monsters, they are weak, fragile little things that will quickly break under the stress of the burdens it tries to bear.

That could be okay -- WotC might be interested in giving us a different style of crutch every year. But I'd like a game that can stand on it's own, first.

Or, to phrase it in slightly more acute terms, defining it's own mythology gets in the way of me, as a DM, defining my mythology. If the rules' goal is to serve the DM, but they're in there telling me that they're only going to help me play their way, not mine, that's seriously not cool. That's 2e "dwarves cannot be paladins because IT IS BAD" kind of material.

D&D should stop trying to be overwhelmingly flavorful in the core. It's rice. It's bread. It should let me top it however I want. Not that it should be flavorless itself, but it should take other flavors very well, and serve as a very delicious base.

The End Is Near.

KM & I agree fully on something.











Run.

 

[Raven Crowking]

No. My argument boils down to "I don't like it, but I manage just fine, I fail to see why you can't."

Because I do like D&D.

RC