GAHH!! Time to take a break from 3.5

[der_kluge]

I came to a very similar conclusion when I ran a high level campaign a few years ago.

I had to stop the campaign when I decided that I was no longer having fun - that it had become "me against the players" - and I was losing, badly.

I stopped that game.

I had an epiphany. Mostly, that I HATED high level D&D, and also that I really sucked at tactics.

I decided that I needed a more simple approach to the game. Ironically, it was still D&D 3.5, but I decided to go back to 1st level, change the *Style* of the game with a few simple house rules.

D&D became fun again.

I recommend you think about the kind of game *you* want to run, and what kinds of games you are good at running. And run those kinds of games. The players will take care of the rest.

 

[Steel_Wind]

A Game of Thrones
Grim Tales
Black Company
Thieves World

All of those pretty much have variants in them that take away a lot of the 'super heroism' of D&D.

Quite right. Yes they do.

Many in my group have discussed running Black Company and most of us bought the book. I am interested in that and that is an option. If the players say "alright - but let's play Black Company" I'll definitely give it some thought.

I've considered running Grim Tales a few times and considered a Slave Lords of Cydonia themed campaign too.

Problem is, right now? I'm Adventured Pathed out. I need some room to design and kit bash some adventures. I don't play - I only DM. Designing for me is the fun part and I need to be able to do that for a while to feel I'm getting MY fun out of all of this.

Thieves World... Yes. Definitely meets the grim n gritty test, but the nature of it is very urban. Truth is, I've never been overly enamoured with an urban focused campaign. Some city adventures? Sure. ALL City adventures? Uhmmm... no thanks.

Which leaves A Game of Thrones. And that IS what I'll be running, albeit set after the Targaryens colonize Dragonstone - and before the fall of Valyria - so that magic is not ripped out of GRRM's world.

That's what "Westeros" is, referred to in my OP.

As between Westeros and Black Company - I'm good with either. My wife, however, knows and loves GRRM and the rest of the group is pretty much familiar with the novels too. But my wife has not read Glen Cook. So as between the two - it's easier to go to GRRM as a common ground amongst the group.

I could run it with D20. But I've run that for about 3 and a half years now - and I need a break from it. There's been some grousing about D20 from a few others in the group, from time to time.

How do your players feel about the switch, anyway? Strikes me as odd no-one's asked.

I don't know.

I think there will be disappointment - as the players have hit 13th level or so and are still enjoying the power I think. It has not got boring for them in the way it has got boring for me.

They also know I'm not a fan of high level, uber-magic and never have been. I've been playing with some of these guys for 28 years now. All of them played RM2 with us for some (or all) of that 17 year hiatus from D&D. So they all knew this would come at some point. They just didn't know when

The other campaign currently running in our group is an Epic campaign. They'll get their fill of uber-power out of that. (And no, I don't play in the Epic campaign).

I guess when it comes to high power - I don't mind it where the game climaxes at that point for a bit and then it ends. It's the timing of that climax that has me bitching.

Well, I don't get it. Nothing you mention in your rant is specific to 3.5, they're all D&D-isms. Heck, 3.5 made raising the dead massively more expensive than it ever was previously.

You're not wrong in saying this. But that's not a point in "the defence of D&D". It's what has always bothered me about D&D RAW since the days of Gygax - and why I stopped playing it for 17 years.

The problem, however, is underscored in 3.xx's design more than it ever was in previous editions though, as the "climax" of high power seems to come earlier now. That's the nature of the game's revised XP tables and levelling mechanic: it brings in high level play to the game earlier by making it faster to "level".

And that's the thing with 4E that makes me think all of this is going to get much worse - not better with a new edition.

The unveiling discussion at Gencon that I attended indicated that they are going to move this High Power feel to comprise fully two-thirds of the game.

YIKES.

10th to 30th level!! And all of the hints indicate that there is to be a new hit point and spell system that entrenches that "back and near fully charged" feel at the beginning of each encounter - because that's more FUN.

Yeah well...good luck with all that. It seems to me that the concept of maximizing "fun" really is very much a video-game centric design creed. It has its moments, sure - but it still comes off over the long haul as essentially empty "fun".

To be a little base about it - it's as if some 4E designers got talking over beer and someone said: "Yanno - Orgasms are great. Wouldn't it be cool if you could have.... 700 of them in a day? Let's make a game like that - all orgasm, all the time."

Sure. VERY COOL for the first bit. But there's a point where - yes - even THAT gets boring. To quote Cosmo Kramer, "Enough already and I just want to go to sleep".

So.....enough already. I got to go play something else for a bit.

 

[Khairn]

Steel_Wind ..

Preach On Brother ... The Choir is Listening!

The current and future direction for D&D does definitely go further down the video game path of gaming, and I can really understand and share both your frustration and desire for a change. RM2 is a great game, and Westeros is a fantastic setting ... Best of luck to you

 

[funkysnunkulator]

[rant]

Alright. Yes. This is a rant.

It's not a rant AT someone or even AT a particular rule, per se.

It's a rant about the whole damn thing we profess to love here.

You see, I've come to the point where I have decided I got to put 3.5 down for a bit. Worse, I've also come to the point where I think that the thing which is bugging the crap out of me about 3.5 is going to get WAY WORSE in 4E, not better.

And as a consequence, I've come to the realization maybe I'm just a dinosaur.

The problem is that I have finally reached that point in my current campaign where boredom, burnout and high level tedium are all coming together in a Perfect Storm: and I realized that I need a break.

Not just from my current campaign (though that too) - I need a break from D&D 3.5.

The problem? The RAW is just too damn video gamey. And seeing as I happen to be professionally involved in making licensed D&D computer game adventures in the recent past - that's saying something.

The RAW assumes a lot of things that I knew long ago (like, 25 years ago) that I didn't like. But it had been so long away from it, it was an imperfect memory. Moreover, it was one without emotional immediacy.

The problem? A game system DESIGNED so that there are No friggin consequences. The party fightsand, afterwards? It heals to max for a pittance of inconvenience. I kill a character - they raise him or her in an instant. They run out of big gun spells? They rope trick and rest in perfect safety.

My RAW game has become like stock NWN1. The party is always at max, fights have no consequences, death is a temporary game state - not an event, and it's all one big hack n slash KILL HIM AND TAKE HIS STUFF AS QUICK AS YOU CAN.

The party gets treasure - and devises even more items to build or buy that maximizes their munchkinhood. They are DRIPPING with magic in my Age of Worms campaign. They are dripping with items like it was one of my Picnics to the Lower Planes Campaigns I ran 26 years ago in high school.

And there was a REASON I didn't run campaign like that again for 20+ years. And while I remembered the reason I hated them - it took me until 2/3rds of the way through the Age of Worms AP to internalize it again as a value:

I hate high power games. I really do. Most of all, I hate high power games without consequences.

And the RAW - that's what they are all about: no consequences.

Another encounter. More XP, More treasure. Level up. Quick!! More feats - more spells, More power. FASTER damn it. More!!! We need to LEVEL FASTER!!!!

Injured? Cure Light wounds wand after combat. BAMF. Everybody's at max again. Dead? QUICK - preserve life! Whew, Ok. Fix that again. BAMF Deduct some gold. Next room! ROPE TRICK. Back at it, boys!

Now, in fairness, I KNOW that the game need not be like this; that this video game like nature of the game we run is ultimately a choice as much as it is a consequence of the rules. I know that there are options which prevent it - campaign styles which discourage it. And yes, alternative D20 systems designed to ameliorate its effects.

But the idea of my PAST campaign was to sample RAW in all of its unbridled glory. To let the game play and be exploited just like it was written. To let the players run rampant with the rules as written and FILL THEIR BOOTS with as much as they could carry away, or exploit or reveal to be a Golden Covered Chocolate Munchkin.

That was my two year experiment. It had its moments, I'll admit. But I got to stop this craziness. And I got to stop it now.

Somewhere at about 9th-10th level, the game upped its power level to Super-Heroes Without Capes. And it was about then I just plain started getting crabby about the whole damn thing.

The video game nature of the system in all its munchkinized luminosity was beginning to shine through in RAW OVERWHELMING POWER - and I bloody HATE IT.

There. I said it.

It's not attacks of opportunity. It's not miniatures and "complex combat" that has got me down. Quite the contrqry. That's all good. It's none of that.

It's power levels without restraint; it's magic items that are no longer chocolate - they are THE MAIN FRIGGIN' COURSE BY DESIGN. It's healing resources that are so Uber - it's laughable.

This may appeal to somebody out there. But you know what? Screw this. It ain't for me.

So I've resolved to take a break from 3.5. No, not Iron Heroes or True 20 or Castles and Crusades. Not even Conan.. Nah.

I'm going to dig out the Rolemaster 2 books again and blow off the dust. I'm going to start my PCs again at first level and make then PLAN their battles. Because if they get it wrong - the dice will lop of limbs - kill characters and wreak havoc upon them.

I'm going to Flip to the Ram/ Butt/ Bash/ Knock Down/ Slug Attack Table and grin like a Rat Bastard GM.

I'm going to Lightning Bolt these bastards and HURT EM. With an "E" electricity and a "C" fire.

I'm going to look at them like they have snakes growing out of their heads when they "detect magic". I'm going to see them get EXCITED when they find a superior steel broadsword and act like the GODS have interfered when they find a weak magic blade.

I'm going to make them look at their food supply and worry about eating having to eat their horses.

I'm going to watch them apply a poultice of herbs to heal a wound, not search through the latest Heward's Handy Haversack for a Cure Light Wounds wand.

I'm going to watch my players look NERVOUS when they get in combat and the percentile dice start dropping in the open. I'm not going to fudge behind a screen. I'm going to run Rolemaster combat in the bloody open and let the dice fall where they may. I am going to kill some party members - and they aren't coming back.

There are going to be challenges - and there are going to be friggin' CONSEQUENCES again.

It's going to be Grim - and it's going to be Gritty. It's going to be Westeros just before the fall of Valyria.

And screw this "Man, Myth and Uber-Magic" stuff. Nah. There is going to be PP and I: Poverty, Pestilience and Inequality. With not a wizard in sight in living memory.

This 4 color superhero stuff might be fun to play - but by God - is it ever tedious as hell to run.

[/rant]

alright amigo, time for a little story. a story about the second v3 character personally played.

amir abdul khaliq LE Rogue 1.

great backstory. everyone thought this character was the BOMB. great great stuff.

dead. session one.

lets go over that again, 'k amigo?

amir abdul Khaliq was killed, rubbed out, iced, whacked, murdered, cut down, tragically taken from us too soon, removed from the next scenario....

in the middle of the first session.

our characters aren't powerful cause they have stuff or levels. they are powerful because the players are the smartest, most paranoid, crafty, devious, underhanded, backstabbing bitches you would ever care to game against. granted, the characters do have stuff, but the dm's council members would be hard pressed to remember them ever truly relying on any toys. over time, in spite of extremely slow level progression (x5 required experience), the characters have aquired a lot of levels.

but guess what.... you can have your 12th level party..... give this player one single lone little itty bitty goblin. one on a mission. driven. determined. your party is dead.

one happy little fact of life in our setting.... everything and everyone can be destroyed. happens quite often. even to this gamer. occasionally we get lucky and a character survives for the long haul and we dance a happy jig. mostly we wallow in our failure as character after character bites the dust.

even amir abdul khaliq. unsung, unburied, belongings "reallocated", body consumed by vermin. not.... coming.... back.....

that was some great great role playing, one for the books.

 

[Ry]

Have you tried Dogs in the Vineyard or Primetime Adventures? I can lend you either - they're games that are ALL about consequence (especially Dogs). Drop me a line and I can hook you up.

 

[Odhanan]

Rolemaster's cool. HARP too.

 

[Nailom]

Hey Steelwind

I have the same issues with D&D and they were even getting worse with Iron Heroes. There's nothing the players have to fear so they play as if not one of their deeds had any consequences.

I either kill all of them or they wind and 10 minutes later they're back in full strength.

My way to go is Savage Worlds in the Iron Kingdoms. The heroes are tough but it's not impossible to frighten them with a bunch of normal guards.

 

[Agamon]

Yeah well...good luck with all that. It seems to me that the concept of maximizing "fun" really is very much a video-game centric design creed. It has its moments, sure - but it still comes off over the long haul as essentially empty "fun".

While I get what you're saying, and don't completely disagree, this just seems a funny argument, coming from you of all people, SW. Heck, you were the pioneer here to use a video game to enhance your table top game. BTW, you gonna keep the projector set up for RM?

 

[Cam Banks]

High-level 3.5 can be a real headache, I completely agree. Writing for it (Price of Courage) was incredibly difficult. There's a reason that book took me the better half of a year to write. In the end, I think the story and the structure of the book works, but I've already read a number of actual play threads for people who're going through it who seem to wonder if it's dangerous enough, or if it's too dangerous, or ...

At some point, high-level 3.5 is so heavily dependent on the players and their choices in making characters. If they know how to break the system and optimize their characters, there's a good chance that consequences mean nothing to them at all. PoC has some tremendously powerful encounters in it, but I eventually stopped worrying about whether they were too tough, or would become TPKs. I knew players would find their way around them. I've been reading over the Paizo APs since they came out and have to wonder how a party can even survive those, but I know - again - that they'll manage.

My next campaign, which I'm starting just as soon as I finish my draft on The Sellsword for WotC, won't be 3.5 either. I'm going to run a game of Scion, with the Elder Amberites from Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber as the gods and the player characters as their kids. I fully expect it to be balls to the wall, high octane, over the top action and magic and epic stuff, but that's the idea. I know going in that it will be and that the game is designed for that to be the case. So we'll see if it can pull that off without disappointment.

Best of luck with RM2! I would be very interested to see if you could convert Spectre of Sorrows or Price of Courage to Rolemaster without losing the bulk of the adventures' meat, but as you say it's far more interesting to kitbash a campaign yourself.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In some ways, I can understand your feelings.

But honestly, I am also not sure if I really like a "grim & gritty" campaign. My fellow players used to played CoC, for example, long ago before I was in the campaign.
One of the complaints they have in retrospect is: If your character dies (or goes mad, and both happens in CoC fairly easily and often) to often, you detach yourself from him. You also will begin to break verisimilitude when creating your characters - suddenly, everyone is heavily armed, in the hope at least this time, they will get to kill the cultists and monsters in time.

They liked the mystery part (if it worked, but it's hard to pull that off on a constant base, and the available adventures weren't all great - in fact most were not, at least in their view).

I think in D&D, the opposite happens - you grow to like your character, and want him ressourected when he dies, because he is just so fun to play and has so many options. But does the world around you really matter? Most of the NPCs you meet end up dead, and the rest is just there to give you information or orders to find the next villain and his minions.

Finding a good middle ground is hard thing to do, and I am not sure I really know a system that pulls it off. (But I don't know have that much experience with games.)


But all that said, I still think there are consequences in D&D - Death isn't just a nuisance, it costs money and XP (and that is only true at higher levels. At low levels, Death means Death). And that really sucks, because my cool character just lost some of his cool. But personally, I would prefer if these things would happen less, but had more impact. Wouldn't it be cool if everytime you want to resourrect someone you would have to enter the "Underworld"/"Afterworld"/"Twilight Zone" and get your man out? And the deceased possibly had to fight to get out and not having his soul consumed / send to the eternal afterlife before he is getting rescued. But this would mean Death was still something seldomly experienced, which is plainly not true in D&D.

But you are correct - aside from the possible death, fights have no lasting (negative) consequences. Wand of CLW, and if neccessary, get to rest. Part of this is because DMs and/or adventure design somehow allow these rest times. Part of it is because the game is strongly focused on game balance, and it's hard to adjucate the balance if the critical numbers change to much. It's easier to create an adventure where the players can rest if required, than to try to guess how much the losses of each combat will change the EL of the next combat.

Other games don't suffer from this problem, because they don't have such a strong concept of encounter balancing or challenge ratings. (Some games don't even get to manage a general character balance, and for some games and/or groups, this might even turn out fine.)