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

[Raven Crowking]

I have no doubt that a setting could exist in which spellcasters are treated, essentially, as scientists and technitions. However, in many ways spellcasters (and other high-level types, for that matter) are a lot more like superheroes. They can create things to allow you to use thier power, but it is ultimately inherent within themselves, controlled by themselves.

If you assume that the NPCs in a campaign setting share the mindset of the PCs, why would anyone choose an NPC class? Even if you were going to farm, it is better to be a rogue than a commoner. D&D assumes, per RAW (those demographics Hussar mentioned above) that most people in the world make sub-optimal choices.

The military as an analogy to spellcaster power ignores that the military uses weapons and ammo only under supervised conditions, and those weapons and ammo are tightly controlled. At least they were when I spent my four years in the U.S. Army. If that was your campaign world analogy, what controls are placed on spellcasters?

All world creation -- in role playing games and outside of them -- requires selective focusing on details, and selectively ignoring others. It requires neither more or less suspension of disbelief to create a non-magitech world than a magitech one. These are issues of style and taste, not maturity.

RC

 

[XO]

It's a Game, with Real Life Parallels

Either people (NPCs) decide to move forward as entrepreneurs, and have done so for some time, or they do the previosu for a short spell, or they have remained steeped in minimalist views. Such choices within the campaign may be cultural and thus, regionalized. They may influence the whole setting.

The premisce of a world appearing out of nowhere at a time X with thousands of years of history and a "setting intelligence" or "setting knowledge" equivalent to zero-level is preposterous. How many contemporary city dwellers believe bears will spew poison at them? Oh, bears don't spew poison?

Some elements within a game CAN be spontaneous. Aberrations could arise as composites of will, dreams, imaginations, mixed with environment, latent magic, and stray magical energies. All aberrations? Depends on the campaign you wish to run. The world then becomes DEFINED by its ecology, well known to participants, and its spontaneity, chaotic and largely unknown to the participants.

As to power level, D&D presumes that if an individual is willing to be an entrepreneur, takes risks and has a little luck, they will likely have success within standard settings. In other settings, meeting all of these conditions may allow you to live while others die. Everyone will take to a life of adventuring, right? In the same was as everyone in America refuses a standard job to do their own thing as en entrepreneur?

Oh wait a minute! There are degrees of "jobs", and degrees of "entrepreneurship". Starting a new computer company to compete with Dell sounds like a major ordeal. The competition is established, entrenched, and loaded with resources. The pay-off is a long shot. Buying a franchise (such as opening a Dairy Queen) is more promising, but typically calls for drudgery not unlike having a job, with risk thrown in for good measure.

Detaining the power creep ties in with the body count. If no one ever dies, or gets horribly crippled, if no excruciating pain is involved in getting your arm sliced off and regorwn, then, everyone around the adventurers will be a veteran.

People want a reasonably good life, with reasonable expectations of continuance, and minimized effort. The blacksmith might bang away all day long. Does he? Only if a surge of business comes his way. Should the temporary surge become the norm, he'll slow down. His competitor may have decided to smith only masterwork items. Another decided to shoe horses. Sick of weapons. Variety strikes a pose!

A setting in conflict strives for survival. A setting at peace strives for betterment. The medieval equivalent works if confined to a short period in history, and no available magic. If books are needed, they will eventually be printed. The Guttenberg invention is nice. "Pop, chug, zing" printing is even better: magic moves things forward.

 

[shilsen]

It'll survive alright, I'd just prefer the mainstream of it not to go too far off the rails. You're welcome to your bad wrong fun (with other consenting adults) in the privacy of your own home.

If D&D survives and does so successfully, then what does it matter what the mainstream does? Personally, I've never really cared much what the mainstream in D&D game design is doing. I love the fact that Eberron exists, since it saves me time and effort in replicating many of the things it does, but even without it I'd play that way, and I'll continue to do so in the future, mainstream or not.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The premisce of a world appearing out of nowhere at a time X with thousands of years of history and a "setting intelligence" or "setting knowledge" equivalent to zero-level is preposterous. How many contemporary city dwellers believe bears will spew poison at them? Oh, bears don't spew poison?

The idea that a setting cannot have the "setting knowledge" that actual peoples had in the real world is equally preposterous. It really depends upon how much good information and ability to travel the average person in a setting has. The average person doesn't have the whole plethora of divination spells; he either accepts authority or does not. Wanderers might tell stories that are true, untrue, or a mixture of both (how often, even in the real world, do we mess up the stories that we tell, even dealing with known quantities?).

It is only in recent times that animals like the gorilla and komodo dragon ceased to be traveller's tales. Sailors used to turn a coin by stuffing monkies & fish together and selling them as mounted "mermaids" -- when the platypus was first discovered, the mounted specimens sent to Europe were thought to be made the same way.

"Setting information" even today is sometimes dim and murky. Why should it be "well known" to the inhabitants of a fantasy kingdom that abberrations "could arise as composites of will, dreams, imaginations, mixed with environment, latent magic, and stray magical energies" when people in the modern world still argue about where we came from? It was not so horribly long ago that people believed in spontaneous generation, and that could be a true theory within a given world (or a widely believed false theory).

There are degrees of "jobs", and degrees of "entrepreneurship". Starting a new computer company to compete with Dell sounds like a major ordeal. The competition is established, entrenched, and loaded with resources. The pay-off is a long shot. Buying a franchise (such as opening a Dairy Queen) is more promising, but typically calls for drudgery not unlike having a job, with risk thrown in for good measure.

Yet, there is no case in a per-RAW D&D world where choosing a PC class is inferior to choosing an NPC class. Yet, per RAW, nearly all the world chooses NPC classes. So, either the RAW assumes that the average person makes sub-optimal choices, or that the average person is not actually making a choice.

A setting in conflict strives for survival. A setting at peace strives for betterment. The medieval equivalent works if confined to a short period in history, and no available magic. If books are needed, they will eventually be printed. The Guttenberg invention is nice. "Pop, chug, zing" printing is even better: magic moves things forward.

Objection! Calls for supposition on the part of the witness.

Magic can move things forward, and if you subscribe to the idea of a benevolent universe with largely benevolent beings, sure it will. OTOH, I note that no one ever bothered to respond to the bit about all the farmers being put out of work. Or the part about creating an abundant food source (magical energy) for creatures that consume it, and the effects thereof. Or, for that matter, how you then control the casters.

You are correct when you suggest that all people want a reasonably good life, but IME people are not necessarily rational as individuals as to what that life is. Moreover, when you get people together in groups, rationality can go out the window faster than Superman when he hears Lois Lane calling for help. Realism takes not only progress into account, but also those things that stand in the way of progress -- including the fact that people often do not agree as to what "progress" means. Hence organic farming.

As said earlier, both are stylistic concerns. You can create a world either way. Neither one is necessarily more mature, and neither one is necessarily more rigorous in its realism. As an example, Harry Potter is not realistic at all, IMHO, and it handwaves nearly all the consequences of the main premise.

 

[Hussar]

All world creation -- in role playing games and outside of them -- requires selective focusing on details, and selectively ignoring others. It requires neither more or less suspension of disbelief to create a non-magitech world than a magitech one. These are issues of style and taste, not maturity.

And, to a large degree this is true. However (you knew that was coming didn't ya? ) many of the large campaign settings have ignored the exact same things each and every time in an attempt to recreate a particular style of genre. Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, the two largest campaign settings by a large shot, have ignored exactly the same things - the effect of wide spread industrial magic and the presence of spell casters and their effect on society.

Sure, we have the Red Wizards of Thay, but, by and large, states are set up as analogues to real world city states and small (and not so small) nation states in Middle Ages Europe.

I do see it as a maturation process when we finally have settings which ask the difficult questions rather than simply sweeping them under the carpet. Why shouldn't game mechanics have an impact on the setting? This is a question that has been largely ignored for thirty years of game development in DnD. This isn't simply a style difference.

If it was that simple. Just a difference in taste, then we would have seen it long ago. But, it's not. The difficulties inherent in incorporating the existence of DnD mechanics in a consistent, reasonably detailed world are numerous. This is a hard question with a capital H. This is why we haven't seen it from d20 sources very much. Yes, there have been steam punk, but, then again, these systems are pretty far removed from DnD. We have seen numerous reductionist systems - Conan, Thieves World, True 20, Midnight.

But, by and large, the only undertaking that has had any legs in decades for answering the truly hard question has been Eberron. Mystara went a fair way with the question, but, generally it was easier in that system since much of the mechanics were undefined or certainly less defined. In 20 years of 1e and 2e, the only settings that have explored this to any degree have been Planescape and Spelljammer, both very much niche settings with followings, but, nowhere near the success of Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk.

In other words, you guys have had it your way for decades. It's time to give the other side a shot at the kitty. Let's actually start examining those sacred fallacies and see where it leads us. For those who aren't interested, Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk will always be with us, but, considering the success of Eberron, I would say that there are more than a few fans out there who are tired of the same old same old and would like to try something new.

Not that new will necessarily be better. But it will be different. And maybe we'll be able to see some new answers to the hard questions, which in turn may lead to even better understandings of campaign design. Who knows?

 

[Raven Crowking]

And, to a large degree this is true. However (you knew that was coming didn't ya? ) many of the large campaign settings have ignored the exact same things each and every time in an attempt to recreate a particular style of genre. Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, the two largest campaign settings by a large shot, have ignored exactly the same things - the effect of wide spread industrial magic and the presence of spell casters and their effect on society.

There has to be widespread industrial magic in order to ignore its effect. Until 3E, the RAW rather discouraged widespread industrial magic due to hoop-jumping. Since we have discussed in the past the difficulties of item creation pre-3E, I feel certain you'd agree that this sort of thing wouldn't have cropped up under the magical "rules" of those worlds.

I do see it as a maturation process when we finally have settings which ask the difficult questions rather than simply sweeping them under the carpet. Why shouldn't game mechanics have an impact on the setting? This is a question that has been largely ignored for thirty years of game development in DnD. This isn't simply a style difference.

No, but neither is it entirely accurate. Earlier editions of the game didn't simply sweep those questions under the carpet; they left them on the dining room table. The rules were designed to allow you to play in numerous play styles. Simply put, the rules were abstractions of genre, and acknowledged to be so.

As a simple example, in 1e, magic users couldn't weare armor. Why? Because in most fantasy and folklore wizards didn't wear armor. Not wearing armor was the genre rule, and hence the rule of the game.

In 3e, wizards can wear armor, but they have a chance that their spells fail when doing so. Why? Ultimately, and past a lot of handwaving that many folks find questionable, the same reason as in 1e.

I don't think that these questions are any more addressed in 3e than 1e. What 3e has supplied for some folks is the illusion of addressing them (just as The Next Generation changed the technobabble of Star Trek to make the handwaving a little less obvious). The real difference is that, when Star Trek came out, the audience was more willing to acknowledge that handwaving, but by the time of TNG, they viewed themselves as being more "sophisticated" and wanted to pretend that the handwaving had lessened or ceased. Same amount of handwaving, different ways of dealing with it.

In any event, though, magitech has nothing to do with the effects of the RAW on the world; it is an interpretation of how the RAW could affect a world. It is only one interpretation, requires as many unanswered questions, and requires as much suspension of disbelief.

Eberron is an interesting campaign setting, and it wouldn't have worked very well under 1e or 2e because those rulesets didn't have the complexity required (IMHO) for dealing well with industrialism or post industrialism. They also didn't deal well with the idea of moderns travelling to a fantasy world ala Narnia because of the class limitations. This, more than anything, is why we didn't see it long ago in D&D. The D20 ruleset is far more flexible.

By all means, take your shot at the kitty. Just don't think you've escaped the influence of sacred fallacies.

RC

 

[Altalazar]

I don't see any problem with it. You have someone saying he played "essential" D&D and used that as the basis for making the new edition of D&D. That seems only logical.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You have someone saying he played "essential" D&D and used that as the basis for making the new edition of D&D. That seems only logical.

But, as many threads have pointed out, people played 1e and 2e with a huge number of variables and in many, many different ways. It has been said, on these boards anyway, and by people that generally disagree with me as well, that it is almost impossible to talk meaningfully about earlier editions except within the context of personal experience or particular worlds. If this is true, how can "essential" D&D be anything other than opinion?

Besides, 3e allows for magitech (which is a good thing). It does not mandate magitech (which is also a good thing).

It is not true that one style (magic as technology/magic as magic) is more mature than the other, requires less handwaving, or is more realistic. You just have to look at the questions I've asked, seen the lack of response to specifics, and you can see that all sorts of things get swept under the carpet with the magitech folks. Just as with the non-magitech folks. All that's changed is what's under the carpet, and what's not.

I've actually gone something like 180 degrees on this. After a while of playing 3.x, and reading threads here, I really felt like cracking the earlier editions again. It felt like something had been lost. Now, while I deny that this is purely "nostaligia" (as some demand it to be), I realize that what I had begun to do was buy into this that the current edition can only be played in one way. Simply not true.



RC

 

[Spatula]

Okay. Let me see if I can restate it. Yes, D&D has ALWAYS had advancing characters, magic items, and lots of spells.

However, it is my impression that in "the old days" (that is, pre 3e), characters used to advance more slowly.

This is true. One of the changes in 3E was that they asked people how long campaigns usually lasted (a year), and altered the XP rate so that players could see the upper levels in that timeframe. This is something that is so amazingly trivial to "fix" to suit your tastes.

They used to get a few magic items, except in campaigns where the DM had let the level of magic get "out of control."

My one long-term 1st edition character got to 12th/13th level as I recall, mostly playing through the official AD&D adventures. And he had an entire page devoted to his list of magic items. This wasn't a childhood monty haul campaign, this was what old-school TSR was publishing in terms of "style of play."

And the characters were supposed to be "exceptional" so that low-level magic wasn't all that commonplace. As a result, the default settings felt more medieval and less Harry Potter-ish.

The abundance of low-level magic is up to you, the campaign-builder. Forgotten Realms, which predates 3E (and even 2E) has always been saturated with magic (and high-level NPCs).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Spatula is right. The system is easy to modify to lower magic. It is simply easier to use as-is. All you need to do is alter XP progression (say to 1/2 standard), give out the same treasure you'd have given out in previous editions, and use appropriate challenges, and the system is fairly self-correcting IME & IMHO.

RC