This is an offshoot of the Who are Howard and Leiber? thread, but is worth being in its own thread, I think.
Game design feeds back on itself. As I mentioned in the previous thread, video games have been greatly influenced the conventions of D&D! From the early days of D&D, it was essential for PCs to get the biggest magic weapon they could find, just because of things like golems and demons that couldn't be hurt otherwise!
And I'd say that D&D has indeed been influenced back - the slot form of magic items is a convenient way of representing it in computer games, but as with all good game design, it has been adapted back to D&D because it works.
Design moves both ways.
Are computer games as legitimate an influence on D&D as novels? I'd say so. I do think there's a large chasm between playing a computer game and playing D&D, but I also believe that there's a large chasm between reading a novel and playing D&D.
I don't see the magical item aspect as being overly troubling in of itself. Although it isn't directly presented in that form in most books I know, high levels of magic *are*, and it's just a logical progression from that.
What it is more of an aspect of is the "let's kill everything and have the best PCs for doing that" mentality. When you come down to it, magic items are primarily useful in combat. When the game focuses on that, of course magic items rise in importance.
Not that I think there's anything wrong with that style of play! It's a particularly good one for younger people, just as games like chess are. They hone strategical and tactical thinking, which are useful abilities. Is it video-gamey? Not quite: it's gamey! It's the playing of a game - without too many of the added elements that make D&D more than that.
One of my contentions is that we need to think about what are the elements that go into a good non-combat-based game. We need to explain how to construct adventures that bring the game out of being merely one combat after another.
I can see in the published Eberron adventures the attempt to introduce intrigue into the mix. I've run all of them, and I can now see how woefully it was done. Whispers of the Vampire's Blade is probably the poster child for this - although they all have big problems. WotVB does at least have big set pieces that aren't all about combat - there is investigation and roleplaying to be done. This is great.
WotVB is closest in form to a James Bond adventure. Where it fails is that at no time do the PCs ever get to know what's going on! Thus, the adventure devolves into a set of chases and combats without ever getting the real pay-off of fitting the jigsaw together. Indeed, they never get to address the real cause of the problem - there's a lot of background information that the DM knows, but the PCs never will. I think that's a huge flaw.
I'm sure others can think of more elements that can be added to take D&D away from merely being killing monsters - and that many of you do it all the time. (I may find the DMG2, which I'm still waiting on - stupid, incompetent Wizards Australia! - covers this, though I'd be somewhat surprised).
Cheers!
Game design feeds back on itself. As I mentioned in the previous thread, video games have been greatly influenced the conventions of D&D! From the early days of D&D, it was essential for PCs to get the biggest magic weapon they could find, just because of things like golems and demons that couldn't be hurt otherwise!
And I'd say that D&D has indeed been influenced back - the slot form of magic items is a convenient way of representing it in computer games, but as with all good game design, it has been adapted back to D&D because it works.
Design moves both ways.
Are computer games as legitimate an influence on D&D as novels? I'd say so. I do think there's a large chasm between playing a computer game and playing D&D, but I also believe that there's a large chasm between reading a novel and playing D&D.
I don't see the magical item aspect as being overly troubling in of itself. Although it isn't directly presented in that form in most books I know, high levels of magic *are*, and it's just a logical progression from that.
What it is more of an aspect of is the "let's kill everything and have the best PCs for doing that" mentality. When you come down to it, magic items are primarily useful in combat. When the game focuses on that, of course magic items rise in importance.
Not that I think there's anything wrong with that style of play! It's a particularly good one for younger people, just as games like chess are. They hone strategical and tactical thinking, which are useful abilities. Is it video-gamey? Not quite: it's gamey! It's the playing of a game - without too many of the added elements that make D&D more than that.
One of my contentions is that we need to think about what are the elements that go into a good non-combat-based game. We need to explain how to construct adventures that bring the game out of being merely one combat after another.
I can see in the published Eberron adventures the attempt to introduce intrigue into the mix. I've run all of them, and I can now see how woefully it was done. Whispers of the Vampire's Blade is probably the poster child for this - although they all have big problems. WotVB does at least have big set pieces that aren't all about combat - there is investigation and roleplaying to be done. This is great.
WotVB is closest in form to a James Bond adventure. Where it fails is that at no time do the PCs ever get to know what's going on! Thus, the adventure devolves into a set of chases and combats without ever getting the real pay-off of fitting the jigsaw together. Indeed, they never get to address the real cause of the problem - there's a lot of background information that the DM knows, but the PCs never will. I think that's a huge flaw.
I'm sure others can think of more elements that can be added to take D&D away from merely being killing monsters - and that many of you do it all the time. (I may find the DMG2, which I'm still waiting on - stupid, incompetent Wizards Australia! - covers this, though I'd be somewhat surprised).
Cheers!
