Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Drifter Bob" data-source="post: 1618897" data-attributes="member: 17723">Defending DnD...changing DnDI see how this discussion has shifted into the traditional "is 3E better than 1E" fight that all such reform threads seem to get to eventually on all DnD discussion lists everywhere.  This is not my intention, and I think we should avoid falling into this trap.As gamers and DnD players, we are understandably defensive.  We are used to defending DnD to all kinds of disaproving outsiders (the thread on being 'saved' from DnD was fascinating) on the one hand, and now that 3E exists, which, like it or not, is a quantum leap of an improvement over 2E, we don't want to risk seeing the game get messed up.Unfortunately this leads to a very conservative streak among a lot of DnD players who tend to stick to canonical support of the rules 'as-is' even if many of them use their own house rule mods and have for years.  There is a sort of panicked tendancy of "don't take away my nice game!" which may go back to the first time your parents tried to take it away in childhood!The point is though, the game is going to to change and evolve.  There are things which need to be improved.  We are for the most part a 'family' here, we all like DnD, just because some of us see certain problems, does not mean we want to reject the game outright or want to ruin it.Groups like ENworld have a lot of influence on game designers.  I know this for a fact, I'm friends with a few of them. WOTC is going to come out with a 4E.  Too 'conservative' an approach could lead to the kind of stagnation we eventually saw in 1E just as easily as too 'reckless' an approach could lead to a horrible distortion even worse than 2E.  We owe it to ourselves and the gaming community to rationally discuss how the game is evolving and identify how we would like it to improve.  I guarantee WOTC does take this into consideration.  A big part of their success with 3E / 3.5E is because they listened to the complaints about the earlier rules systems, and implemented them, taking the opposite attitute to the old TSR.  I mean, I can remember everyone wanting things like skills going way back to the early 80's when we used to see them in other games...My point is, we should be able to discuss weaknesses or flaws in the game and the idea of making it better without triggering this panicked reactionary debate which polarizes people into reformist and conservative camps.  We should be able to have constructive discussions of how to fix things and make improvements.To get back to the point of this thread, a lot of us feel that there are aspects of the current rules system wihch are tending to push the game in a certain direction, a more juvenile, politically correct, video game like direction.  Ourph, curmeudgeonly as he is, did a good job of pointing out some of the specific ways this happens.  Just citing rule 0 or pointing out that people can have house rules is kind of a cop out.  Ourph made a good point about suppliments, and the original inspiration for this thread was a person who contacted me by email, an old school 1E player who wanted to start or join a 3E game, but who was extremely frustrated by the very prevalant and exxagerated juvenile, 'munchkin' playing style of the many groups and individuals he contacted.  This confirmed for me a feeling I've had for a long time.  I think it is something  worthy of serious consideration: can the rules effect the 'culture' of the game, and if so, what can we do about it.DB</blockquote>

Verification