Embracing the D&Disms
- Thread starter Quasqueton
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pogre
Legend
ruleslawyer said:
This is pretty much how I reconcile the D&Disms in my campaign. Characters are fated - some of the very few individuals in the world who can benefit from experience at the accelerated rate given in the PHB. This does make them kind of like super heroes - and their actions eventually do have an impact on the world. This allows me to embrace the pseudo European medieval feel and still have hasted, flying, invisible barbarians for PCs. I used to nerf a LOT of stuff, but since I have powered up the game - my players seem to enjoy it more.
A'koss
Explorer
This is an interesting thread and a certainly a topic that has created no small amount of discussion amongst our group over the years.
We too had created a setting a few years back that was designed from the ground up to embrace all the wonderful D&Disms. It was later labelled, somewhat dubiously I might add, "Bunker World" due to the fact that the rather weak PC races had holed up in great magical fortress-cities linked by permanent teleportation circles and portals. Everything else was essentially ruled by powerful, intelligent monsters and spawn-creating undead. That was actually a lot of fun, and lasted for nearly two years, but a style that wore on us eventually as time went by.
We went back to core level magic campaign that lasted for quite a while but there was always something about the core D&D mechanics, particularly at high levels, that created a kind of frustration among our group. One of our players said something that I think we we're all really beginning to feel - It just wasn't what he had envisioned high level adventuring to be like. Higher level D&D gaming doesn't really reflect anything but itself, but it's not like I need to tell anyone here that....
It all comes back to this fundamental question - Do you let the rules dictate the setting and style of play or do you mold the rules to support the style of campaign you want to run?
This question led to the beginnings of what would be a very, very long discussion geared towards really nailing down what style of play and what kind of campaign we could all enjoy. And one that would satisfy our need for things like internal cohesion and a level of believability in it's self-sustainability.
Almost to our own surprise we found that our tastes have slowly gravitated towards a lower magic style of game and more "character-centric" as it were. Fun stuff developing it I can tell you. But who knows, years down the line we may yet again revisit core D&D style of game with all it's irksome rules intact.
Just my two bits for tonight,
A'koss.
We too had created a setting a few years back that was designed from the ground up to embrace all the wonderful D&Disms. It was later labelled, somewhat dubiously I might add, "Bunker World" due to the fact that the rather weak PC races had holed up in great magical fortress-cities linked by permanent teleportation circles and portals. Everything else was essentially ruled by powerful, intelligent monsters and spawn-creating undead. That was actually a lot of fun, and lasted for nearly two years, but a style that wore on us eventually as time went by.
We went back to core level magic campaign that lasted for quite a while but there was always something about the core D&D mechanics, particularly at high levels, that created a kind of frustration among our group. One of our players said something that I think we we're all really beginning to feel - It just wasn't what he had envisioned high level adventuring to be like. Higher level D&D gaming doesn't really reflect anything but itself, but it's not like I need to tell anyone here that....
It all comes back to this fundamental question - Do you let the rules dictate the setting and style of play or do you mold the rules to support the style of campaign you want to run?
This question led to the beginnings of what would be a very, very long discussion geared towards really nailing down what style of play and what kind of campaign we could all enjoy. And one that would satisfy our need for things like internal cohesion and a level of believability in it's self-sustainability.
Almost to our own surprise we found that our tastes have slowly gravitated towards a lower magic style of game and more "character-centric" as it were. Fun stuff developing it I can tell you. But who knows, years down the line we may yet again revisit core D&D style of game with all it's irksome rules intact.
Just my two bits for tonight,
A'koss.
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A'koss said:
White Wolf, of all people, seems to be coming on board....
You know, it's not an either/or question. You can decide that the basic tone and style you want is that of an over-the-top, high-FX game with lots of flashy kabooms and weird, wacky monsters, like that implied by the core D&D rules. AT THE SAME TIME, you can also decide that certain elements of the rules involve too much work or are detrimental to specific types of adventures you want to run. So you throw out the stuff you don't want, and keep the stuff you like. People who have trouble accepting this are the sort of people who think the 7.5 billion chickens example is a serious strike against D&D.
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DragonLancer
Hero
A'koss said:
Of course, you can do what you want, but I always feel that the second option is best. I'm not saying that you should remove teleport and the like, but consider it within the setting.
Wizards of the levels suitable to cast such spells are not living in towers on street corners, nor are they going to be at the beck and call of a monarch. Wizards are (perhaps sterotypically) not inclined to use their magics for others. Magery is a personal thing.
So considering that, you do away with the idea of teleport circles and gating armies wherever they need to go.
Its under 3.x that the nature of the pseudo-medieval has changed. Prior editions never seemed to have this sort of problem or debate. Embracing the D&Dism's I think spoils the mood that playing in a fantasy world of sword & Sorcery, Middle-Earth. or Conan has.
I've come up with a fairly balanced house rule to deal with casting spells and money.
Material spell components are ground up into a special ink that is used to scribe scrolls and spells into spell books. Once the spell is scribed, the wizard or sorcerer need only to memorize the spell. In effect the spell book becomes the major material component, much as a holy symbol is for a cleric. Normal rules for creating magical stuff.
Material spell components are ground up into a special ink that is used to scribe scrolls and spells into spell books. Once the spell is scribed, the wizard or sorcerer need only to memorize the spell. In effect the spell book becomes the major material component, much as a holy symbol is for a cleric. Normal rules for creating magical stuff.
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A'koss
Explorer
"So you throw out the stuff you don't want, and keep the stuff you like..." still falls under molding the rules to suit your style of play that I was getting at. You can mold D&D to support an even higher powered Dragonball Z anime style of play -if that's what you want- but what I'm saying is that core D&D has a certain style - a D&D style. Except on a very superfical level, it doesn't replicate the style or the feel of LotR, Conan, Fafrd and Grey Mouser, Elric and so on. If you have a younger group I think it is easier to handwave the potential fallout of the rules on the setting, but once your players start to question it - you either have to embrace it... or change it.
I'm a big proponant of changing the rules to help set the tone you're looking for and I don't think people should be afraid or discouraged from experimenting on their own - even with even large rule modifications. We have a House Rules forum for those who need help... and playtesting will sort out what works and what doesn't in fairly short order.
We've removed (by and large) Teleport and most transportation style spells from our game because we wanted to bring in exotic mounts as the means for higher level characters to get around. Most of our powerful divinations require you to be at a certain site at a certain time of year with the celestial alignment "just so"... in addition to having the proper materials (or sacrifice) and the proper spell. Even from just the two changes here you can probably begin to understand a little of the feel of the campaign we're trying to create.
Cheers,
A'koss.
A'koss said:
These are hardly the only touchpoints of inspiration that can be drawn on when it comes to fantasy. The fact that they keep getting trotted out says more about the innate conservatism of many D&D gamers, than it does about the game or the genre.
See, there is this Exalted game by White Wolf, which is basically D&D turned up to eleven. For those who haven't got with the program, one of the lowest-powered spells that a PC can use in Exalted, rain of obsidian butterflies, is comparable to a meteor swarm in D&D. A common weapon in the hands of a fighter type is a daiklave, which is a six-foot-long, one-foot-wide sword: the canonical example is Cloud's sword in FF7. Exalted loses some of D&D's plot-device spells (unlimited-range teleport, easy divination, resurrection), but also has a far, far richer collection of powers for dealing with life outside the dungeon. One of its charm trees is entirely to do with getting your way with the bureaucracy!
There have never been, as far as I can tell, complaints about how Exalted exists in a cultural vacuum. Far from it, in fact. Here is a post from Geoff Grabowski, Exalted line developer, originally made on RPGnet:
"Anyway, I felt there was a clear line of inspiration that ran like this:
Code:
Dinosaurs Rule The Earth!
/ \
/ Eastern Epic +
Western Epic Chinese Novels
/ \ | \
/ Classical | \
Lord Dunsany Histories | Floating World
\ / | Prints
\ / Wuxia |
Pulp Fantasy \ Anime
/ \ \ /
Riverworld* Pulp Revival CRPGs
\ | /
\ v /
+-----> Exalted <-----------------+And that I could steal from basically every point along those trails,
and as long as I didn't try to emphasize mututally contradictory
elements. People who hate Ninja Scroll but think Red Blades of Black
Cathay is elevated entertainment, or who find the Ramayana thrilling
while dismissing Final Fantasy as overpowered crap often pick part of
the tree and use those elements exclusively. I generally find the
differences illusionary -- I don't really see very much space between
Cloud Strife's sword and the ox-goad of Shamgar of Anath, other than one
being more legitimate in the eyes of the person doing the imagining,
which is what matters, but I like to steal omnivorously."
The funny thing is, everything he says applies just as much to high-level D&D. The overall tone and style of high-level play is very much similar to the sorts of things you do in Exalted, and all the precedents mentioned apply.
The potential fallout of the rules on the setting is a second-order issue, coming after the potential fallout of the rules on gameplay. Buff-scry-teleport, for instance, is something I couldn't give a stuff about in terms of how society-at-large would evolve to accommodate it. Buff-scry-teleport, on the other hand, is something I worry about a lot in terms of how to avoid killing PCs arbitrarily, or how to avoid BBEGs being killed arbitrarily. D&D is not the game to play if you're of a hardcore simulationist bent.
Or ignore it. I have found that this works remarkably well. Don't you have better things to do with your time than trying to deal with the 7.5 billion chickens?
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