Does 3E/3.5 dictate a certain style of play?

[Thanee]

Battlemats aren't the advent of 3E.

Certainly not. Midgard, a german RPG that's like 10-15 years older than D&D3E, utilized battlemats in a similar fashion already (including something akin to AoO; but also with actual facing rules). And it might not even have been the first there.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Crothian]

But when the rules move the battlemat from facilitating the action to dictating it, overruling the GMs conception about what the environment is like, it has overstepped it's domain.

How does it over rule the GM's conception of the enviroment? As a tool shouldn't the GM have the battle mat fit his conception? Or is it that the battle mat for some reason just can't do that?

 

[Psion]

How does it over rule the GM's conception of the enviroment?

By the RAW 3.5, if I trace a line across a corner drawn on the battlemat, the target gets cover.

In RAW 3.0, I, the DM, decide how much cover the target is warranted.

 

[Crothian]

By the RAW 3.5, if I trace a line across a corner drawn on the battlemat, the target gets cover.

In RAW 3.0, I, the DM, decide how much cover the target is warranted.

Can't the DM just draw it out so that things get cover that he feels should? And can't you just erase and redraw it if something gets cover that shouldn't? I'm not a good art person so I make mistakes on the battlemat. I think that it's important for a group to know that the battlemat is not the final answer.

 

[Psion]

Can't the DM just draw it out so that things get cover that he feels should?

The rules don't allow for different iterations of cover like in 3.0. So I could draw all day, cover is cover, and situations are handled by ad hoc rulings or you take what you get by tracing corners. Drawing on the map won't cover things like swiss-cheese style barricade or how bold or shy the creature on the other side is.

 

[Mark CMG]

This makes me wonder-were previous editions actually more flexible in their styles of play? You could play with miniatures or without, (. . .)

Regarding miniatures, the group I began play with, when the game first came on the market in 1974, all came out of a tradition of wargaming, including miniatures wargaming, so I've/we've always used them to help define physical locations when appropriate, necessary, or just helpful (though some situations where they could be used certainly don't require that they must be used).

So, in this day and age, am I completely out of step? Is there still any place for non-powergamers around the game table?

Perhaps unrelated to your other point, I've been involved in games that were of varying (sometimes extremely varied) power levels in all editions of the game. I don't think it is the rules that dictate the style of play or power level of the game so much so as the DM and players at any given table. A new player could walk into a game store or convention (or two people's homes, if invited) and find two tables using the same books but find two very different games being played, and neither would be, strictly speaking, breaking the RAW.

The rules address the adjustments a DM is meant to make if the power level of the game changes from, not what is assumed to be proper but, what the rules are capable as handling as a middle ground as well as what the rules are capable as handling as a range beyond that middle ground. The rules as written don't accuse those trying to play at different power levels as wrong. The rules as written try to accomodate them, admittedly with varying degrees of success.

 

[VirgilCaine]

If I seem like a bitter old-timer, I'm actually not: I'm only 24. I must admit that I hate the idea of magic being a cheap commodity

Cheap magic will be a cheap commodity. Expensive magic will be expensive. If you want mysterious, rare magic, in Kord's name, why are you playing D&D?

and find the sheer numbers of variant races/templates/fusions bewildering (if dwarven innkeepers bar customers just for being elves or humans, and mercenary guilds deny membership to certain people because they are women, elves or halflings, what chance does a person who is so obviously unusual have of thriving in a world where racial and sexual discrimination are a very unfortunate but very real part of life?), to say nothing of prestige classes (I prefer to take the existing classes and make role-playing/ability variations as needed).

Turn the scenario around.

If my D&D is a world where terrible monsters exist and clerics of gods that want lots of people dead are routinely attacking society, and non-humans walk around your city every day (gnomes, halflings, dwarves, half-orcs, and IMC, civilized orcs, fair ogres and fair giants, and the occaisional goblinoid, kobold, or similar, with magically enforced paperwork documenting their status as civilized beings), then accepting someone with green skin and silver hair (as a recent tiefling PC had in a one-shot adventure) is not a problem.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

I don't know about dictating any certain styles of play. There are differences to be sure, but I find there isn't any more min/maxing going on than there was in earlier editions (notably 2E), especially with all the introductions of new races and the increasingly (IMO) overpowerful kits that the Complete books kept coming out with.

As far as magic items go, I know that our OD&D characters used to be pretty loaded down with magic items themselves, even moreso at earlier levels than 3E characters seem to be, IMO.

Then again, I don't game nearly as much these days as I did back then, so maybe I'm missing something.

There are definite tradeoffs, though. I find it is easier to balance things now, and I really enjoy the customization of feats, etc. But it isn't as easy to just create games on the fly (something my brother used to be really good at), and things (combat, notably) seem to go a lot more slowly.

 

[VirgilCaine]

As far as magic items go, I know that our OD&D characters used to be pretty loaded down with magic items themselves, even moreso at earlier levels than 3E characters seem to be, IMO.

There was a thread that compared Keep on the Borderlands with Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury.
The Keep was ridiculously packed with magic items. Lots of magic weapons and armor, but then, these could easily be destroyed.
The 3e modules had fewer, more powerful items, which are harder to destroy than in 1e.

Of course, the item creation is entirely diffrent. My 1e DMG says nothing about when you can create permanent magic items other than "high level magic-users" can do it.

 

[Umbran]

) So, in a nutshell I'm wondering if it's possible to have that kind of "toned-down" campaign without screwing everything up?

....

So, in this day and age, am I completely out of step? Is there still any place for non-powergamers around the game table?

Yes. I couldn't say. Yes.

The current edition is more clear and open about it's assumptions, and the resultsof those assumptions, than any other RPG, ever. A GM who wants to pay attention can mangle it in a variety of ways and have it still function. In the past, the GM didn't have the assumptions clearly spelled oout, and flexing was done poorly, or by the seat of the pants...

I think RPG players have become a bit more sophisticated over time, and they've become more accustomed to being given exactly what they want - so that they are less tolerant of a system that doesn't give them that out of the box.