Has D&D become too...D&Dish?

[Kaffis]

I've yet to play in a game that didn't have such a shop in it. In every game we get into town and the players just look at their cash, page through the DMG and hand the GM a list of what they want, and almost always get rubber stamped. Forget a limited selection. Also forget haggleing or any possibility that the shop keeper or townspeople might possibly cut you some slack just because you saved them, their livestock, and their immortal souls from horror and torment.

Indeed. Actually, I take that back. Back in college, the game I played at the FLGS, run by one of the proprietors, had no such shop. Instead, he'd hand out most of the magic items (and certainly the best ones around in the game) via the powerful mage that we frequently did odd jobs for as quest rewards. And they were typically powerful, but flawed or marked in some way because the mage, while powerful, was more than a little eccentric. Like the +2 frost longsword the ranger got, which was a nice weapon for the amount of magical items in the setting, but smelled of apples whenever it was unsheathed (which is, of course, more than a little inconvenient on occasion for a ranger), because after the mage made it, he used it to cool his cider stocks while we were away. He was an awesome DM, and, I'm sad to say, really spoiled me in such regards.

Since moving after college, however, I run into the "give me a list of what you can afford by the book, and I'll probably rubber-stamp it" once we get into a town of any size, in just about all the games I play.

 

[SSquirrel]

While the sacred cows might annoy you personally, I doubt clerics make it harder for new players to learn the game or that new players think its bad to have a cleric. The healing class is a staple of modern fantasy gaming, from EQ to Final Fantasy, which is where most of the new people playing D&D are coming from nowadays most likely. Saying you don't like it is one thing. Saying it is hurting the hobby is quite another thing entirely and something I can't agree with. People do grok the healing classes.

I never said Clerics are hurting the hobby. In 9 out of 10 groups I have been in or read about on trheads here, someone basically has to draw the short straw to play a Cleric. Every party agrees they need a Cleric but nearly no one wants to be the PEZ dispenser. Get rid of it and teh arcane/divine split. We already have Bards as arcane casters doing healing magic, so just blow it all down.

 

[William Ronald]

Well, there are some clerics in legend and fantasy literature. Mind you, there are alternate ways of modeling a cleric than is done in the core rules. (Monte Cook does have a feat that allows one to be a member of a religious order.) I personally enjoy playing clerics, but I think that for me it is a chance to role play a character who is devoted to something higher than himself. I think that this might be an approach to take in a future edition, particularly if the Arcane/Divine Magic divide weakens or vanishes.

(Perhaps one thing that might help people in roleplaying clerics is to include some information on the deities, myths, and the clergy's role in society. I am familair about the differences between Zeus and Athena, or Thor and Tyr. However, how much do people know about the clergy and beliefs of St. Cuthbert or Heironeous, or other core rules deities.)

 

[Nightfall]

*wonders if threads like these are going to keep on going*

Okay fine then! Orcus rules, Scarred Lands Rocks and this has nothing to do with anything in this thread. Why? Cause this threadcrapping is better than watching people whine and gripe. If you want to whine and gripe, fine. Do it on your own time. Otherwise GO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Thank you.

 

[William Ronald]

*wonders if threads like these are going to keep on going*

Okay fine then! Orcus rules, Scarred Lands Rocks and this has nothing to do with anything in this thread. Why? Cause this threadcrapping is better than watching people whine and gripe. If you want to whine and gripe, fine. Do it on your own time. Otherwise GO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Thank you.

Well, as for the cleric bit, I would argue that having a series of organizations and stories about the deities in a setting can help add to roleplaying flavor. Perhaps one important thing that a DM can add is a few tales of rolemodels for players to base their characters on for a setting. So, perhaps one way to solve the problem that people might have with certain classes is to have a few good stories in each campaign or in the core rule books. For example, what is the role of a cleric in an adventuring party and in different societies? How is a rogue more than just a thief? Just a few random thoughts.

 

[Banshee16]

As a player in Monte's Ptolus game and as a keen student of the development of D&D under Wizards of the Coast, I'm not quite sure I follow your reasoning.

The quoted section from the Player's Guide seems to summarize game elements that are hard-wired into the system, and have been from the start. Advancing characters. Magic items. Lots of spells.

Is there some specific sort of "flavor" from Ptolus that you think has influenced the 3.x rules?

I'm interested to grok the point you're trying to make, but right now I'm having difficulty understanding what that is.

--Erik

I think he's getting at the "degree" to which these things are part of the game. Since the advent of 3E, many things about the game have changed significantly from previous editions....the prevalence of magic items, the number of character types with magic abilities, the speed with which characters advance, etc. It used to be that characters couldn't just go and buy magic items at a shop. They were rare, and powerful, and now characters are dripping in bling. In fact, the system has been built in such a way that a DM has to incorporate bling, or risk the game breaking.....even encounters with monsters are calculated according to the characters having X many gp worth of items based on their level, in order to compete.

The reintroduction, and worship of the dungeon.....and many other things.

The game has definitely changed. When I read the original poster's question, that's what I feel that he's getting at....unless I'm reading my own bias into it.

Banshee

 

[Nightfall]

Well, as for the cleric bit, I would argue that having a series of organizations and stories about the deities in a setting can help add to roleplaying flavor. Perhaps one important thing that a DM can add is a few tales of rolemodels for players to base their characters on for a setting. So, perhaps one way to solve the problem that people might have with certain classes is to have a few good stories in each campaign or in the core rule books. For example, what is the role of a cleric in an adventuring party and in different societies? How is a rogue more than just a thief? Just a few random thoughts.

Well I can answer that the role of the cleric is to fight off the Titans. At least that's their hope.

 

[d20Dwarf]

I realize I'm coming late to the discussion, but it's interesting that y'all bring up the fact that D&D was morphed to cater to a 1-20 game in a year of constant play. It may or may not be true that campaigns typically last a year or less (probably true), but where did the imperative to "just get through all the levels" come from? That's certainly a huge departure from the gaming style of older editions, and speaks directly to the OP's point. The game designers clearly made the assumption that rushing through all 20 levels was a good goal in and of itself, presumably because it would offer players a range of experiences. Unfortunately, the experiences offered by high-level D&D aren't really all that satisfying.

Pogre cited an interesting survey that said most people found levels 5-8 a sweet spot that they enjoyed playing in. I agree with that, but then I realized that it was based off a nostalgic assumption. Levels 5-8 *used* to be a sweet spot, and while I carried that over into 3e for a while, now I realize it no longer applies. All levels are the same in D&D now, 1-20. An "appropriate" monster will take 20% of my resources whether I'm 2nd level or 18th. Sure, the tools change, but the baseline assumptions never do. Levels 5-8 were special back in the day because you spent more time there, accumulated more stories there, and reached a point where you had some cool abilities and toward the end of that range probably some phat loot (or at least that one character-defining piece of equipment).

Magic, too, has lost that luster. The system itself assumes that your character will have X,Y, and Z items to boost his stats and defenses up to a certain level so you can take on that "appropriate" monster with 20% of your pre-defined resources. It's an incredibly boring exercise. That's why you have the magic shop assumptions, because if you don't let PCs customize their loot, then they're going to be dying left and right because of the game's assumptions. Faster levelling also makes special, personalized magic items obsolete, because you're whisking so fast through levels that almost as soon as you get a cool item, it's no longer strong enough to take on those "appropriate" monsters. So, you have to keep trading up at the local thorpe's magic emporium.

There *are* assumptions in the d20 system that affect gameplay in significant ways, always have been, always will be. But the forced levelling mechanic and CR/wealth systems have clearly impacted how D&D is supposed to be played, and have blown a lot of what people liked about the game for 25 years out of the water.

Oh, and there are good things too, blah blah...

 

[Nightfall]

Like more freelancing gigs eh Will?

 

[ChristianW]

Is everyone on board with the style preferred by the WotC 3e designers?

I am late to this, but I tought I'd respond to the OP's comments.

When 3.0 was introduced, I read that the game was designed to allow a group of four players to advance their characters to 20th level after a year of playing. This was to be accomplished if a DM followed a careful progression of ELs, encounters per level and guidelines and so on.

This just isn't my style at all. I began playing in 1984 and never once did we state "reaching 20th level" as the goal of a campaign. Sadly, any deviation from that style can lead to problems with gamers who have come to accept rapid level progression as the proper way to play.

"DM, we should have advanced by now. We just had our 13th encounter for the level and that is the guideline for level progression."

Man, what?