[EDITION WARZ] Selling Out D&D's Soul?

[diaglo]

As Henry pointed out, I wasn't saying that the older editions weren't fun (obviously, they were), just that they were poorly designed out of the box to deliver that fun, as shown by the near-nessecesity of house rules (which is shown by evidence drawn mostly from these boards -- Gary Gygax himself did not play with the rules out of the box). They relied instead upon the people putting them together inventing fun themselves. Like turning a cardboard box into a toy, it's something that can be a lot of fun and very rewarding, but a cardboard box is a poorly designed toy.

i'll just say in my opinion that your opinion is bologna and agree to disagree with you.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Yep. In fact, barring double damage on a nat 20, I can't think of a single house rule we used in 1e. Not so with newer editions. We may not have used ALL the rules, but we didn't change any of the existing ones.

 

[Henry]

Yep. In fact, barring double damage on a nat 20, I can't think of a single house rule we used in 1e. Not so with newer editions. We may not have used ALL the rules, but we didn't change any of the existing ones.

That's the kind of "house rules" I was referring to earlier - dropping weapon vs. armor class, dropping grappling and overbearing, using a different init system, etc. For your 1E games, for example, did you use the init system in the 1E DMG, or a more simplified version a la the 2E init sytem, or like Gary did, just use a 1d10 + dex and casting time mods?

For our games, for instance, we used a 1d10, and used the weapon speed or cast time mod to represent the FASTEST time we could go, rather than as the mod. For instance, if you used a dagger, you could indeed go on a 1 or 2 if you rolled it (subtracting dex mod). If you used a fireball and rolled a 1, and had an 18 DEX, you STILL couldn't go before a "3". And if you used a two-handed sword, you were GOING to go on 10, no matter your roll. It worked pretty well for us, and kept from having to reconcile what a "17" meant in a round with only 10 segments.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

By "viedo game feel" I mean that CR and WBL sets up an atmosphere of "you cannot confront the end of level boss until you have the red key and the BFG9000".

Again I stress, this is just my personal gut feeling, rather than fact.

Well, that's more of a First Person Shooter feel than a generic Video Game feel.

Actually, I can't think of any video game I've ever played that didn't allow you to proceed until you had a certain weapon, with the exception of games like Metroid where the weapons double as adventuring tools/keys.

Seriously, what type of video games are you referring to? Most single player games don't have any kind of encounter balance, certainly not enforced; it's quite easy to get near the end of most action and adventure games and realize, for example, that you don't have enough ammo left to kill the final boss without resorting to the knife/boot/chainsaw/other default melee weapon that doesn't work on bosses unless you're a gaming god.

By contrast, in well over a decade, I've played relatively few tabletop RPGs where the GM allowed the players to get TPK'd because they were too liberal with their ammunition/spells/whatever in earlier encounters.

 

[diaglo]

That's the kind of "house rules" I was referring to earlier...

i haven't played a newer edition campaign sans house rules.

edit: or esp errata. the newer edition is full of errata

 

[Umbran]

edit: or esp errata. the newer edition is full of errata

Yes, but the older editions are full of things that should have had errata, but didn't. So in one case we have to incorporate changes from separate documents, and in the other we play with rules that don't quite work as well as they ought. Six of one, half dozen of the other...

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Yep. In fact, barring double damage on a nat 20, I can't think of a single house rule we used in 1e. Not so with newer editions. We may not have used ALL the rules, but we didn't change any of the existing ones.

In only a few corner cases would I make a distinction between dropping a rule and making a houserule. Mostly that would apply to esoteric isolated systems that live in the DMG, and were intended as "helpful advice" to the DM.

 

[BroccoliRage]

"Vanilla monsters?"

I've beat the urine out of 20th level characters using goblins, kolbolds, and quicklings. Using AD&D. I've had players completely baffled by invisible stalkers, ghosts, and dopplegangers. I've made 25th level AD&D characters think twice about charging an Orc encampment. People have scractched their heads when I've broken out of stereotypes and sent goblins armed with stolen powder kegs marauding. Any moster can be interesting and surprising if you're inventive. You don't really need all those templates and whatnot. All you have to do is let your imagination run wild.

There are no vanilla monsters, only vanilla DM's.

 

[Kormydigar]

"Vanilla monsters?"

There are no vanilla monsters, only vanilla DM's.

QFT

 

[BroccoliRage]

Thanks, Kormy.

That, however, is not a condemnation of 3e. It's a condemnation of an attitude that many DM's, regardless of edition, are guilty of. Even myself at times.