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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Water Bob" data-source="post: 5827155" data-attributes="member: 92305">What I've decided to try involves two tweaks from RAW. 1.  Instead of where I would usually throw initiative in a 3E game, I'm going to start throwing it as late as possible and not at all, if I can get away with it.  This will keep the game Free-Form for as long as possible. For example, let's take a simple scenario where a warrior walks into a room and sees two goblins.  In a 3E/3.5E game, I would throw initiative right there, when line of sight happens and combat is likely. In a 1E AD&D game, I'd keep the scenario Free-Form until an actual attack was made.  Only then will initiative be throw. There's a difference in the two methods.     The second thing I'm going to do is allow up to a maximum of 2x Speed for movement on a character's turn.  This means, on his initiative count, the character can perform a Full Action, a Move action and a Standard action or a Standard action with a Move action, or the character can perform two Move actions. Then I will go around the table, resolve other characters actions. After everyone has had a chance to act, I will return to the first initiative count and allow up to 2x Speed movement. Thus, if Ruz wants to run full-out, he would move 2x Move on this initiative count.  Everybody else gets act, then we'll come back to Ruz and allow him to finish the last half of his movement. I'm going to try it and see how it plays.        Actually, I haven't been playing my Conan game ignoring any rules.  I'm playing it RAW, straight out of the book. I've played around with a couple of tweaks, but nothing stuck.  I kept coming back to RAW. Sunday night's game session was conducted 100% RAW with absolutely no House Rules or tweaks.  It was strictly by the book.        The reason is because 3E (don't know about 4E...haven't played it) was written from a different design philosophy than was 1E and 2E AD&D. 3E, by the rules, is a tactical combat game.  It's designed to use miniatures and a grid (not that its required).  1E and 2E AD&D were designed using a more Free-Form design philosophy. I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about.  In my talks a couple of years ago with Steve Winter (one of the three chief designers of 2E), I asked him where the check to look for secret doors was.  Did they just omit it? His answer was that the three designers (Winter, Zeb Cook, and Jon Pickens) agreed that they wanted 2E to encourage more Free-Form play.  They purposefully omitted any roll for secret doors in the 2E game system (I think there still might be a check for elves, though--can't remember) because they wanted players to play out looking for secret doors.  They didn't want a boring dice check.  They wanted the players to have their characters pull their daggers and start knocking on sections of the wall with the hilt--roleplaying the finding of the secret door. 3E's design philosophy is completely different.  There's a dice roll for EVERYTHING.  And, look at the combat examples--all laid out on a grid with unrealistic, "wargame-y" rules like the flanking rule where, in order to be flanked, a character must be fighting two foes that are EXACTLY across from each other on the grid. Zoom out an look at the rules of those three D&D editions, and from a macro level, the 1E and 2E games encourage the DM to come up with House Rules and rules on the spot.  The 3E game attempts to standardize every obstacle that can pop up in a game with a standard type dice throw.   So...because 3E is a tactical combat game, it's more akin to Axis & Allies than it is the earlier editions of D&D. If a Fighter wanted to climb a tree in 1E or 2E AD&D, then the GM would either just allow it or come up with some toss on the spot for the character to do the act.  "Um...this tree is kinda hard to climb.  It's lowest branches are waaaay above your head.  Throw 3d6, and if the total is less than your STR stat, then you are able to climb up there.  Take your armor off, and the roll becomes 2d6 for STR or less." The GM just arbitrarily made that up, on the spot--a workable throw to get the fighter up the tree. With 3E, there's a Climb skill.  So, everybody knows what you need to roll.  GM need only provide the difficulty. It's easier to look at a book, point to the rule, and say, "See...this is how it's supposed to be done." That's why 3E GMs are more loyal to RAW than 1E or 2E GMs.</blockquote>

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