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

[Storm Raven]

I honestly feel that every version of DnD as played by certain players encourages and rewards players for rules lawyering, power gaming, min/maxing, and munchkinism in general. It gives players a sense of entitlement to knowledge outside the scope of thier PC and encourages metagaming.

I made some revisions to your statement to make it more accurate. If you don't think 1e/2e had more than its fair share of rules lawyering, power gaming, min/maxing, munchkining players with a sense of entitlement to knowledge outside the scope of their PC and a healthy streak of metagaming, then I would say that it is likely that you (a) didn't play a lot of 1e/2e, (2) are looking back at your 1e/2e play experienced with rose colored glasses, or (3) were very, very lucky.

The 1e/2e player base was rife with all of these faults. Heck, "metagaming" and "acting on player knowledge not character knowledge" weren't even considered to be bad form for much of the early 1e era. Gygax has portions of the 1e DMG devoted to dealing with players trying to invent gunpowder and other modern conveniences based upon their real world knowledge - he doesn't say it is bad form for them to do so, just that the DM should place obstacles in their way to prevent their being successful.

 

[Storm Raven]

Hmm...just for S&G let me see if I can do a scratch list here for Frodo (note I am not listing the One Ring - he never used it, although Sam did):

I believe you are misremembering. Frodo uses the One Ring on no fewer than four occassions - once in the Shire, once in the Prancing Pony, once on Weathertop, and once to escape Boromir.

 

[thedungeondelver]

I believe you are misremembering. Frodo uses the One Ring on no fewer than four occassions - once in the Shire, once in the Prancing Pony, once on Weathertop, and once to escape Boromir.

D'oh! Thank you. I knew that didn't sound right.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Just what does this mean, though? Despite this, I have experienced a lot of different styles under D&D with relatively minimal changes. Political intrigue, shady criminals, Arthur-esque knights, classic dungeon crawl, classic quest fantasy, martial arts mayhem, struggles for suvival in desolate wastelands, etc. The most that most of these require is the selection of options.

You add the variants in UA into the mix (an official D&D book, I'll remind you), the doors get blown wide open.

I just mean you can't really play a Conan style game under standard 3e assumptions. Conan didn't have 69 magic items, and the magic system is totally fire and forget with no real side effects. ME is similar in those regards. Conan or Iron Heroes seem to be better fits for such gaming. Of course you can do those with some tinkering. Sure you can run political intrique with all the D&D assumptions. The game styles you mention don't really affect the base assumptions of D&D worlds, characters dripping with magic items, spell casters left and right, and basically fantasy superheroes. Core D&D isn't like putting a GURPS Fantasy setting together where there aren't as many stylistic assumptions in place. I guess my view is that D&D is NOT a toolkit for generic fantasy gaming. Nothing wrong with that, it does what it does well.

 

[buzz]

D&D is a fairly generic gaming system for playing heroic fantasy.

I tend to feel that D&D is its own genre...

I agree with Merric here. IMO, D&D is "generic" only in the sense that it defined a specific genre that is, in some ways, the baseline for most typical RPGs. D&D has a host of assumptions built into (classes, races, magic, mode of play, morality, etc) it that prevent it from really being considered "generic" IMO.

...but that 3e D&D has the ability to model more types of world than 1e did. Hmm. That's not quite right - you can do a lot with 1e - but I think the level of tinkering needed is different.

I agree with this 100%.

To me D&D is not a brand, D&D is an idea that is implemented in as many different ways as there are gaming groups.

This is interesting.

I once asked the people in my Saturday group why it was they were so insistent on playing D&D. I thought their stated play-style preferences were poorly supported by the system. E.g., "I'm not really into combat."

Their answers were almost uniformly: a) nostalgia, i.e., "D&D was the first RPG I ever played"; and b) color, i.e., "I love the trappings of D&D," e.g., beholders, mind flayers, paladins, dungeons, specific setting elements, etc. Not a single answer, IMO, really pointed at all to caring about the mechanics, nor that the mechanics helped make their preferred gaming experience happen. (Which they don't, and that's been consistent in every session I've played with them.)

So, really, el-remmen's point above gives us a clue as to why threads like these are so problematic, and I think "brand' is actually the best terminology for our use here. To whit:

To many people, "D&D" has absolutely nothing to do with the system. D&D is a brand with certain expectations, yet even these expectations vary from person to person. At the core however, is a system focused on killing things and taking their stuff. Every edition of D&D has been focused on this mode of play in terms of mechanics.

However, every edition has also made nods to world-building and simulation, 2e probably most of all. There are also some inklings of "storytelling" and narrative concerns; again, 2e was the probably most overt. These have acted as springboards (especially in early editions) for people to drift from the core model of play into areas less supported by the actual mechanics. Ergo, we see reiteration of Ron Edward's point about the various "D&Ds" created by individual play groups.

So... I think there are two phenomena that contribute to the current state of edition wars:

1. Whether edition X matches up with your individual "D&D"
2. That 3e is vastly superior to most previous editions in this regard: it's, for the most part, not trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

(I'm sure I''ll get flak for #2, but I think it's true.)

I.e., 1e was a "fighty miniatures game," but then Gary added in all this stuff about setting verisimilitude. 2e was also a "fighty miniatures game," but many books tacked on a lot of (IMO) BS about "storytelling" and equivocating combat with "bad roleplaying," not to mention the horde of settings published for 2e (again, the world-building angle).

3e, however, is a "fighty miniatures game," AND IT MAKES ALMOST NO BONES ABOUT THAT FACT. Granted, there are still some nods to both the verisimilitude aspect of 1e and the "story" aspects of 2e, but, for the most part, WotC is focused on supporting the core D&D experience of combat, monsters, and treasure. IMO, this is simply good design, and it's one of the reasons I like 3e so much.

Not that 3e can't be drifted like any other edition, of course. Nonetheless, I think 3e's forthrightness about what it is and what it does is probably very off-putting to people whose heavily-drifted games are what they consider "real D&D." (That, and people who may simply prefer the fighty miniatures rules of edition X.)

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'm in the not convinced camp as well.

Which assumptions do you mean? The wealth/level ones? That's a simple baseline, and, really, pretty easy to get around in the single digit levels. You can strip out all the wealth from a party, simply bump the point buy to about 45 (which models Conan heroes pretty well) and you have a Conan setting so long as you set the level limits to about 11th. Use mostly human and humanoid enemies, with the odd aberation and dire animal tossed in, and that's pretty darn close.

Might have to nix a few of the classes, but, that's more a setting thing than rules anyway. Paladin's wouldn't fit in Conan too well, not because of power or balance issues, but because paly's don't fit.

Middle Earth? Meh, not too hard at all. Good grief, the Fellowship is literally dripping with magic halfway through the first book. Granted, Gandalf would have to be NPC'd, cos, well, if I had a high double digits level wizard in Moria, there'd be a stack of dead goblins before I retreated.

Dripping? Compare what Aragorn was packing compared to the gear a mid teens level D&D ranger would pack according to the suggested wealth tables. He would have magic armor, magic shield, magic rings, magic amulets, a couple magic weapons, etc. And he wasn't a regular hero, he was very special. Was Boromir packing a load of magical items, or Gimli? Frodo had somes stuff that other characters gave him no doubt. High level in middle earth was still guys riding horses fighting with swords and stuff. Of course Gandalf was like having a Planetar in the group. In D&D it's teleporting, flying, super strength, super dex, etc.

 

[Hussar]

Aragorn has an artifact level sword for one. However, I have no interest in this discussion. Mostly because I fairly strongly dislike Tolkein in general and find discussions of The LOTR to be extremely boring.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Aragorn has an artifact level sword for one. However, I have no interest in this discussion. Mostly because I fairly strongly dislike Tolkein in general and find discussions of The LOTR to be extremely boring.

Artifact level sword? What does it do? How many primary powers and secondary powers did it have?

 

[Umbran]

I honestly feel that the 3.xE of DnD encourages and rewards players for rules lawyering, power gaming, min/maxing, and munchkinism in general. It gives players a sense of entitlement to knowledge outside the scope of thier PC and encourages metagaming.

When you find a decent game for which this cannot be said, then maybe I'll find it a valid criticism. Because sure as heck there were power-gaming, min/maxing, munchkins apleanty playing earlier editions! And playing WW's Storyteller! And playing various superhero games! And... playing everything! Monopoly! Poker! Parcheesi!

Games, by their nature, have rules. Any time you have rules, you will have people who try to run the ragged edge of those rules for their benefit. That's one way to have fun with a game. There really is nothing new here. If it isnt' new, it is unlikely to be the fault of the new edition.

 

[billd91]

But - and while I don't disagree - that's balanced on the other end by the fighter types having no magic items at all, ever, for the duration of the books. Unless you count Anduril/Narsil, which while being a keen blade wasn't really given any "magic" properties. I guess we could be generous and call it a longsword +1 or +2.

Hmm...just for S&G let me see if I can do a scratch list here for Frodo (note I am not listing the One Ring):

Sting (a shortsword of enemy detection +1 or +2 as you like )
The Phial of Galadriel, a glass of Continual Light (when held, unlim. charges)
An Elven Cloak
Elfin Chain (in pure AD&D terms, not magical, just very light to the point of not being an armor burden)

Hmm...the waybread wasn't magic, the broach on his cloak wasn't magic...what else was there? It's been about a year since I last read the books but I honestly don't recall what else he had.

I don't think it's necessarily true to say that the fighter types had no magic items and that Anduril would only have been a low + weapon. We ultimately don't know anything about most of the gear the characters carried because there's no specific reference to anything significant either way. We know the daggers given the hobbits were significant but there's no reason to think Boromir's weapons weren't equally significant, Minas Tirith being the seat of the heirs of Westernesse and Boromir being the steward's heir. He probably had some significantly good gear, just not important to the story (aside from the horn) to merit mention.
One other thing to remember is that magic in ME is generally subtle and in the few cases where it is not, it's dangerous because it reveals who and where you are. Everyone had the elven cloaks out of Lorien but their effect is relatively subtle, same with Sam's rope. There's no overt magic to them, but they clearly are best modeled as magic items in D&D.

Ultimately JRRT wasn't interested in detailing magical powers of equipment so I don't think we can really say that it's best to model the characters as being devoid of magic in D&D terms. Particularly not considering how significant and experienced some of the characters are.