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

[Numion]

I think that, through extensive market research, WotC found your experience to be fairly representative of the typical experience.

Doing lowly market research to find out what the game is about? The true essence of the game is so unique and special that it can't quantified in any way. That's what the elitist club would want us to believe, anyhow. Because making sense of it all would once again make it more accessible.

And I think anyone who feels that "D&D's soul" is in save-or-die effects or wording that renders rules opaque is taking a very narrow view of the spirit of the game.

Church.

 

[SuStel]

I actually do not care if I have the right amount of wealth for my level. Not a bit. I care whether I feel like my character is getting rewards that seem roughly commensurate when weighed against the risks.

Let us not forget that one of the challenges of a good RPG is for the players to figure out when they are outclassed. All encounters should not have a measured level of wealth. A party should not waste its time on typical wandering monsters; these are to be avoided because fighting them is unlikely to yield any significant benefit.

A DM who is following the 3rd edition DMG too closely may fail to realize this.

P.S.: Ah, it looks like Papers & Paychecks already brought this up. Never mind.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Let us not forget that one of the challenges of a good RPG is for the players to figure out when they are outclassed. All encounters should not have a measured level of wealth. A party should not waste its time on typical wandering monsters; these are to be avoided because fighting them is unlikely to yield any significant benefit.

It can be, but it certainly doesn't have to be. In most of my games, for instance, "wandering monsters" are an impossibility because all encounters have a purpose and have been placed for a reason, to advance various story threads and represent characteristics about the world. I want my characters to be able to face these encounters, so I make sure that previous encounters have about the right wealth reward.

 

[Mokona]

all encounters have a purpose and have been placed for a reason, to advance various story threads and represent characteristics about the world.

Agreed, in my campaign there are no random encounters and no wandering monsters. Everything serves a specific purpose for the story even if it's just getting everyone's blood pumping before we go home.

 

[Ourph]

It can be, but it certainly doesn't have to be. In most of my games, for instance, "wandering monsters" are an impossibility because all encounters have a purpose and have been placed for a reason, to advance various story threads and represent characteristics about the world. I want my characters to be able to face these encounters, so I make sure that previous encounters have about the right wealth reward.

To re-address a point I was trying to make earlier, do you...

A) Run your game in this style because that's the way the rules are set up and they force you to adopt this specific style?

or

B) Run your game in this style because it's your preferred style and the rules simply facilitate your preference?

Same question to you Mokona, if you'd be kind enough to answer.

 

[I'm A Banana]

To re-address a point I was trying to make earlier, do you...

A) Run your game in this style because that's the way the rules are set up and they force you to adopt this specific style?

or

B) Run your game in this style because it's your preferred style and the rules simply facilitate your preference?

Quite definately B. Heck, the core rules encourage crafting a wandering monster table and give you an interval with which to roll random encounters for. Thankfully, it's easy enough, with the CR and WBL guidelines, to ignore that and simply select a monster that is appropriate for the challenge I want to give them (which can range anywhere from "mop up the orcish mooks" to "talk with the red dragon, because you will die horribly fighting it," to "great challenge with a tougher monster that you can still overcome, if you're clever and lucky").

But it's not just my preference, either. I do like random generation of challenges and have tried to DM with a more open-ended adventuring policy (you go places, stuff happens, repeat). I've just found that in the great experience in diverse groups that I've had, the method of "choose your own adventure" D&D is appreciated on a much greater level; that is, D&D with a storyline that the players can affect.

 

[Ourph]

Quite definately B. Heck, the core rules encourage crafting a wandering monster table and give you an interval with which to roll random encounters for. Thankfully, it's easy enough, with the CR and WBL guidelines, to ignore that and simply select a monster that is appropriate for the challenge I want to give them.

So, purely hypothetically, if you switched to a system like AD&D where the random encounter is assumed and much more integrated to the system; where the rulebooks give the DM more resources for generating such encounters and deciding when they occur, would you say that would affect the way you approach random encounters in your current games?

 

[Raven Crowking]

The implicit assumption behind this line of argument is that PC death, or alternatively, permanent loss of equipment, or the acquisition of other permanent disadvantages such as the loss of body parts or ability scores, are the only meaningful negative consequences.

I don't think so. I think that the implicit assumption behind JRRNeiklot's post was that these were acceptable negative consequences, and the more that you limit what negative consequences are acceptable, perforce, you limit the dangers faced in the game.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

And majority of the complaints I've seen about 3E in this thread seem to be based on (or caused by) bad DMing. But as you can see this is not going to be a very fruitful conversation.

Ah, but has anyone claimed that 1e could magically turn poor DMs into adequate ones? I think not. Perhaps what we are learning here is that "3e makes poor DMs adequate" is another one of those Internet Myths.



RC

 

[Numion]

So, purely hypothetically, if you switched to a system like AD&D where the random encounter is assumed and much more integrated to the system; where the rulebooks give the DM more resources for generating such encounters and deciding when they occur, would you say that would affect the way you approach random encounters in your current games?

Isn't there a lot of stuff on random encounters in 3E? IIRC there is. Even going as far as to present two types: where EL distributed similar to adventures, and another for "status quo" random encounters, where, if some mountain is a dangerous place, the random encounters will be eg. CR 10-15 no matter what level the PCs are.