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

[Maggan]

Oh, please, Mr, Umpire, give me one more strike! Striking out is not fuuuuunnn. Make the pitcher throw it slower!

Let's lower the basketball goal, 10 feet is too high - I can't dunk!

Wah, wah, wah.

So when you play basketball with your friends, you rent a professional arena?

Seems a lot of work just to have a bit of fun with a ball.

/M

 

[Keldryn]

First, yes, I'm an elitist. What's the problem with that? Hobbies aren't democratic; whether your hobby is golf or chess or fly fishing or RPGs, some people are just better suited to them than others.

That doesn't mean that those hobbies should go out of their way to exclude people who are not as well suited to them as others. I've never been very well suited to more athletic hobbies... does that mean that I shouldn't be doing them? I am not making any accusations, but there is usually a fine line between "elitist" and "arrogant snobbish jerk."

I wouldn't advise a semi-literate person to play RPGs any more than I'd advise a blind person to take up clay pigeon shooting. At the end of the day, almost everyone who has fun playing RPGs is on the high end of the intelligence curve and they're generally fairly articulate and well-educated. And a lot of us are nerds, too.

There is a huge difference between semi-literate and what we're talking about. It's true that a lot of gamers are on the high end of the (academic) intelligence curve... but I've also met a lot who aren't, or at least aren't in terms of traditional academic measures. A lot of gamers are fairly articulate but seem to be lacking in a lot of the social graces that many less educated and less "intelligent" people don't have issues with. I've known a lot of gamers who had never touched a fantasy novel, or pretty much any other novel that wasn't required reading at school, before playing D&D. And I think it's great that the game has improved the reading abilities of many people. But I also think it's more likely to happen if the game books themselves are more clearly written.

Second, I could read the AD&D DMG at the age of 10 and so could my friends. You don't need a "college education."

Yeah, well I was reading the AD&D DMG while I was still in the womb!

I started with Basic/Expert D&D and added bits of AD&D over time until I eventually just switched over completely. There was a lot of stuff in the DMG that we just didn't bother with because it wasn't very clearly explained, or it just seemed overly convoluted. Of course you don't need a college education to read the DMG, and I never said that it required a college education. But the way in which the DMG was written is definitely aimed at adults with a college-level reading ability. That doesn't prohibit anybody from reading it, but it makes it somewhat less accessible to younger readers.

Third, AD&D was published in several languages.

Of course it was, but that wasn't my point. If you live in a country where English is the predominant language, where all of the local stores only stock the English versions of the books, and play in a group where most of the players are native English speakers or where English is the only common language amongst non-native speakers, the fact that it is published in different languages isn't that helpful. The game rulebooks aren't novels, they are rulebooks, and it is beyond me why you would want to make them anything less than as clear as possible in explaining the rules of the game.

 

[Garnfellow]

Oh, please, Mr, Umpire, give me one more strike! Striking out is not fuuuuunnn. Make the pitcher throw it slower!

Let's lower the basketball goal, 10 feet is too high - I can't dunk!

Wah, wah, wah.

You do realize that MLB lowered the pitcher's mound in 1969 to give the hitters more of chance to hit the long ball?

And you must not watch much professional basketball, because the rules for that game are constantly changing.

 

[Keldryn]

Actually, that's very true in my own case. I still remember thumbing though the 1E PHB which I managed to get cheap from a guy who retired from gaming. It's exactly as you say - I had a genuine sense of wonder when I was reading it. It held my interest the way a novel would.

With the 3.5PHB (I skipped 3E entirely, fortunately - *$cha-ching$*), it felt more like I was reading a Beginner's Guide to C++. The rules are so neatly set out, so structured, and so interwoven and airtight; coupled with that, there was no real "feeling" put into the writing that I could pick up on - everything is presented in totally factual and clinical terms.

It goes without saying that this is completely and totally a case of personal opinion. I should also point out that I was about 12 when I got the 1E PHB, and 33 when I got the 3.5 PHB, so I may be a lot more jaded these days.

The greatest sense of magic and wonder that I ever felt when reading a D&D book was when I was 12 and reading the Mentzer "Red Box" D&D Basic and Expert sets. Needless to say, those were my first D&D books. By the time I moved on to the 1e AD&D books, they never really held up to those first D&D sets. There were a lot more character options and more comprehensive rules, but I always thought that the AD&D books lacked the flavour, magic, and wonder of those Basic, Expert, and Companion sets.

And no 3rd edition D&D book comes close to reading like a Beginner's C++ book. I've never read an RPG book as intolerably boring as a C++ book.

 

[Keldryn]

Does this mean that chess is a boring game? Because all the pieces are mechanically identical each time you play?

Talk about comparing apples and... tomatoes. We're talking about RPGs, not chess, and this is a pretty irrelevant diversion from the point being discussed.

But yeah, chess is an intolerably boring game, but it doesn't have anything to do with the pieces being identical each time you play.

 

[jcfiala]

House rule? Perhaps. But I don't change fundamental concepts like rolling 1d4 damage for a giants boulder.

And that's cool - as well as being a lot more grown up than whining about strikes. I don't mind disagreeing with other people, but childish posts like that don't advance the conversation - it stops it to no benefit.

 

[Numion]

Oh, please, Mr, Umpire, give me one more strike! Striking out is not fuuuuunnn. Make the pitcher throw it slower!

Let's lower the basketball goal, 10 feet is too high - I can't dunk!

Wah, wah, wah.

Strange argument, coming from you. 1E is the "mother may I" game. And in my experience having no rules for something in 1E meant "it can't be done" rather than the rosy picture painted about 1E, that the fair and just DM was ready wing on a moment notice.

 

[Ourph]

You agree that higher level characters should come with higher powered equipment. I think we can likely all agree on that. Why are guidelines for the amount of equipment a bad thing?

The guidelines were used by the designers as part of the CR system (as were the standard 25 pt. buy stat array and the four PC party). You can call them "optional" if you want, but what you are really saying is that WBL guidelines are "optional if you don't mind the CR system becoming essentially worthless to you". IMO an "optional" part of the game isn't really optional if failing to use it means other parts of the game system stop working properly.

That said, I'm not opposed to WBL guidelines - I don't think they are a bad thing - I just think it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that AD&D's assumptions about equipment affect the way the game plays in the same way that 3e's assumptions do. 3e's assumptions are integral to the system whereas if AD&D considered the effect of equipment at all, it was as an abstract consideration where the main point is "too much is bad".

 

[Keldryn]

You're comparing apples and ornages here.

Err.. how am I comparing apples and oranges? The post I was referring to stated "mechanically identical." So I was addressing mechanical customization.

I will freely admit that 3.X allows for more mechanical customisation of characters, but back in 1E, two characters of the same level were by no means clones. In fact, I would argue that the very same factor actually encouraged more development of character personality and identity roleplay-wise to make your character unique, rather than relying on a page of Feat, Skill and PrC stats and figures.

I think that's BS that 1e's lack of mechanical customization more strongly encouraged unique personality development. There have been well-developed, interesting characters and shallow, dull characters in every role-playing system. Are 3e players relying on their lists of feats, skills, and prestige classes to define their characters' identities and personalities any more than 1e players let "chaotic good elf fighter" define their characters' personalities? Or it is just an assumption that you are making without any actual basis in reality? GURPS, Hero, Vampire and many other systems have had skills, advantages and disadvantages -- many of which actually are personality-related, unlike in 3e -- for years, and any players whom I encountered that relied simply on those lists were the same ones who mainly defined their AD&D characters' personalities by "chaotic neutral thief."

Not to say you can't roleplay just as well in 3.X, before anyone jumps back on that argument again...

I'm not going to make that argument. I just don't agree that the lack of mechanical customization encourages players to develop unique personalities for their characters any more than having those options does. It's always boiled down to how much effort the player feels like putting into developing his character, regardless of the system involved. I've found that having those options available sometimes helps to give a player ideas that he might not have had otherwise.

 

[Keldryn]

Dwarves had a small amount of magic resistance in old editions, if memory serves...as did Hobbits. Having such beings able to be wizards didn't make much sense.

IIRC, the legendary Dwarven magic resistance was basically a saving throw bonus. I don't think they actually had a Magic Resistance percentage as defined by the rules.

And neither race had as much magic resistance as Drow, which strangely enough, were allowed to be magic-users. Dragons had magic resistance too. Actually, there are a lot of monsters in AD&D that have high magic resistance (more than Dwarves), yet still possessed lot of powerful magic abilities. Why pick on Dwarves in particular?

As for Dwarven magic items, I have no problem at all with their being made by Clerics: have a Dwarven artificer make the item, then get it blessed by Moradin via a high-level Cleric, with the blessing giving it its enchantment. Seems simple enough...

Why do all Dwarven magic items have to be divinely-created? Why aren't Dwarves allowed to study how to craft and enchant these items on their own? Given their connections to the earth, why don't Dwarves have the ability to learn any earth-based arcane magic? I think it robs Dwarven crafters of some of their legendary abilities, by requiring the actions of an external divine entity in order to create anything magical. Plus, I don't think 1e made any distinction between arcane and divine magic in terms of how magic resistance or save vs. spell bonuses worked. Why were Dwarves allowed to be clerics but not magic-users, if they are so inherently non-magical?

3e spellcasters do work better as single-class, I agree. And you're right about 1e multi-classers; I put some restrictions on such things so long ago now I forget they weren't there in original design.

1e and 2e multi-classing (and the ridiculously convoluted dual classing) was one of the things I was happiest to see go in 3e. Unless you were playing in a long-term campaign, it was generally much more advantageous to multiclass in two classes, as you would usually only be one level behind a single-class character in each of your two classes. Once you started to hit 10th-12th level or so, you started lagging behind, but most campaigns didn't seem to last that long.

I'll go out on a limb and say Gestalt is in fact the thin edge of the design wedge; that 4e characters will more closely resemble 3e Gestalts than we all might expect (or want).

Is this just a gut feeling, or has their been some discussion from the folks at WoTC that have led to you believe this? I haven't been in the loop much lately, so I'm asking an honest question here.

Me, I have no problem with the DM lobbing an NPC or two or three into the party to fill holes...and they fill graves well, too, though I find we kill off PC's about the same rate as party NPC's.

I prefer not to, as I'd rather that the PCs know that they are responsible for whatever happens to them... whether than be victory or defeat. If the party is lacking in healing ability, I generally prefer to have them find a few extra healing potions, rather than give than an NPC cleric.

WotC's research had some big, big holes in it; but even without that there's one key assumption they make that isn't always true: that each player only runs one PC at a time.

I think that assumption is true more often than not. Well, at least most DMs I've encountered really don't like to do that. I'm sure there were some holes in WotC's research, but it seems to be a fairly accurate picture of how the game is played by the majority of players, at least from my perspective. Which could be wrong, of course.