"HF" vs. "S&S" gaming: the underlying reason of conflict and change in D&D

[Remathilis]

PLEASE quote where I said that, and I will ask for pardon.

Follow the quote links back to see who I was responding to...

 

[Zulgyan]

Guys, when I made the list, it was to give proof that AD&D was strong S&S, not to say that 3E or 4E was not. The guy I quoted asked me for something, and I answered.

Again, I never said that 3E or 4E was pure HF.

I say that many people want D&D -any edition- to work more like HF game. This is undeniable, you see it all around the net. You see it in published modules, in adventure paths, published campaign sagas, etc. etc. And D&D was never quite suitable for that, because it still maintains many S&S elements! As you guys have answered.

That is why -my thesis- in order to make the current prevalent campaign and adventure design work, one that is more rooted in HF than in S&S, the system has incorporate rules to make everything easier to archive and more automatic, so that the "story" or "campaign saga" doesn't get spoiled by character deaths, lack of appropriate treasure at the right time, facing the arch-enemy when they aren't high level enough, etc.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I did some analysis of the game itself on the OP. Ok, I'll expand.

In AD&D by EGG:

1) Being good or evil is just the same for survival, progression and success. Being good or even beign the protagonist, grants you no special consideration. You are all by yourself.

2) Power and luck is the only thing that will define a battle, not your higher or better morals. There is no cosmic justice in the D&D world. If you are stronger, more resourceful and lucky, you win and nothing will punish you for that aside from an revengeful enemy.

3) Advancement is by killing and looting (1 XP for 1 GP). Killing an evil or a good guy is just the same. Looting from an evil temple or from charity is just the same - no moral judgments.

4) No XP given for quests. So if you help the peaceful villagers, they is no XP from that aside from what they pay you. If you kill them and take their stuff, you'll win just the same XP and the extra XP for the villagers. Then you can go kill the evil monster and take his stuff as well. Nothing in the system punishes you for doing that.

"Quest" is a spell 5th level cleric spell that works like a curse, more than something noble and idealistic to do.

5) Gods have stats and can be killed. They are just super-powerful monsters.

6) Nowhere it says that being evil is against the premise of the game, as the 4E say. You even have an evil-only class: the assassin.

7) Guidelines for demon summoning, totally available for the players.

8) More randomness, more unbalance, more weird unexpected stuff. No forced balanced encounters, no prescript treasure.

9) The only reason for being good, is to have access to the nifty paladin and ranger abilities, and too be able to use some magic items reserved for the good guys - so it's totally in self interest, no real altruism.


That makes the game strongly sword & sorcery in my eyes.

The following is my comparison to 4e, based on your analysis.

1) Being good still offers no mechanical advantage over being evil. (Same)

2) (Same)

3) Last I checked, there was nothing in 4E to prevent people from getting xp for killing "good guys". The only significant difference is that you don't get the piddly 1xp for each orphan you slaughtered, since that orphan probably isn't considered an "xp-worthy" challenge under the 4e system. The only difference is a minor, gamist one. (Effectively, same)

4) Fair enough, quests are new (or rather, an old house rule made official). Nonetheless, players are encouraged to create their own quests (DMG pg 103). An evil PC, insulted by the insignificant payment the townsfolk offered him, might make a quest out of destroying the village. Whether he gets xp for the townsfolk themselves depends on how tough they are relative to him. Nonetheless, I doubt you will argue that player-driven quests are anti-S&S. (Genre neutral, depending on the quests themselves and how they are motivated)

5) Gods are still super-powerful monsters. (Same)

6) 1e didn't have to be politically correct. Back when the game was first created, there was no bad publicity about it being "the devil's game". The world (and it's perception of D&D) is different from when the game was first created. WotC is just covering it's own behind (see, the kids playing this game are heroes, so it isn't a bad influence on them at all). There's absolutely nothing stopping anyone from playing evil characters. With the removal of alignment restrictions, it's actually easier to be evil now than it was then, since I don't have to choose between playing a Paladin OR being evil. You can even play a Warlock who draws his power directly from the Abyss. (On the surface looks different, but look any deeper and you realize that not only is this the same, being evil just got easier)

7) Not in the game, I suspect for the same reasons as 6. (Here's an actual difference, but I don't think you can argue that this is a deal breaker on it's own; certainly not all S&S characters summoned demons- most knew better)

8) This is just a viewpoint. What you call "random and unbalanced" I call a lack of guidelines. I don't recall an elder dragon flying across Conan's path and eating him the first day he entered the wide open world. (I fail to grasp how random and unbalanced equates to S&S; IMO, this point is irrelevant)

9) Now you can be an evil ranger or evil paladin. (Even better than the original)

According to your analysis, what makes 1e S&S in your eyes seems to apply to 4e as well. Note, I don't actually think 4e is a S&S game any more than I believe that any edition of D&D was hardcore S&S.

 

[Zulgyan]

See my above post. I was not comparing AD&D to 4E. I stating characteristics that made AD&D strongly S&S.

Something I'd like to add:

In the "save or die" discussions, one argument you CONSTANTLY hear is:

"I don't want a single die role to "ruin the story"".

 

[Desdichado]

By player empowerment, I mean a combination of giving PCs game breaking powers well beyond what they had in earlier editions, while basing the system on the PCs and the DMs NPCs using the same rules on an even playing field. Players were given the power to bully DMs within the system for the first time.

Yeah, see, I wondered if maybe that's what you meant. So I do disagree after all. How did players "bully" DMs because of something in the game itself? That seems an odd and certainly unproveable assertion to make. If DMs let themselves be bullied, I don't know how playing OD&D, BD&D, 1e, 2e, 3e, or 4e is going to have any effect on that.

1) Being good or evil is just the same for survival, progression and success. Being good or even beign the protagonist, grants you no special consideration. You are all by yourself. The system or the DM does not help you out.

And that's different than today's game... how?

2) Power and luck is the only thing that will define a battle, not your higher or better morals. There is no cosmic justice in the D&D world. If you are stronger, more resourceful and lucky, you win and nothing will punish you for that aside from an revengeful enemy.

If anything, the de-emphasizing, neutering and almost complete abandonment of alignment as a game element in 4e speaks much more strongly to this idea than anything in 1e or before.

3) Advancement is by killing and looting (1 XP for 1 GP). Killing an evil or a good guy is just the same. Looting from an evil temple or from charity is just the same - no moral judgments on the source of XP and $$$.

And that differs from today's game... how? I mean, I get the detail of xp = gp, but what moral judgements does 3e or 4e make about who you decide to fight?

4) No XP given for quests. So if you help the peaceful villagers, they is no XP from that aside from what they pay you. If you kill them and take their stuff, you'll win just the same XP and the extra XP for the villagers. Then you can go kill the evil monster and take his stuff as well. Nothing in the system punishes you for doing that.

Should it? And what does that have to do with high fantasy or sword & sorcery? That's a game element that does not map to a literary genre. In other words, I could just as easily have said that in a more modern game, nothing in the system punishes you for pretending to kill the evil monster and conning the townspeople into giving you reward. It's still a challenge overcome. XP and loot. Woot! Or, nothing punishes you for killing the monster and then going back to the town and shaking them down for protection money.

Just because you presented an arguably "high fantasy" example doesn't mean that a "sword & sorcery" example can't be just as easily implemented.

5) Gods have stats and can be killed. They are just super-powerful monsters.

The only reason that's nto true for 4e is because they haven't gotten around to it yet. :shrug: 3e had a Deities & Demigods book too, y'know.

6) Nowhere it says that being evil is against the premise of the game, as the 4E books say. You even have an evil-only class: the assassin.

I'm not very familiar with 4e, so help me out here. 4e says this? Even while it eliminates, say, alignment requirements for paladins making the classic anti-paladin a playable class right from the get-go?

Like I said; I'm not super familiar with 4e, but I suspect you're just flat-out wrong here.

7) Guidelines for demon summoning, totally available for the players.

And if you mean to say that that's unique to OSR games, you're also flat-out wrong.

8) More randomness, more unbalance, more weird unexpected stuff. No forced balanced encounters, no prescript treasure.

That's a game element that has nothing whatsoever to do with sword & sorcery or high fantasy or any other genre either, for that matter.

9) The only reason for being good, is to have access to the nifty paladin and ranger abilities, and too be able to use some magic items reserved for the good guys - so it's totally in self interest, no real altruism.

Hah! And in 4e you can get those abilities without being good. That's an example of the opposite of what you claim it is.

That makes the game strongly sword & sorcery in my eyes.

Well, clearly. I don't see how a single one of those is relevent to sword & sorcery, and for that matter, I think a good half of them are just flat out incorrect to boot.

 

[Desdichado]

See my above post. I was not comparing AD&D to 4E. I stating characteristics that made AD&D strongly S&S.

Uh... what? Then you missed the point of my question. And apparently forgot the point of the entire discussion... which... you... started.

 

[Zulgyan]

You have to post my complete quote dude, not just the beginning...

You even took away a coma and replaced it with a period. Dishonest quoting pal...

 

[Mallus]

Again, I never said that 3E or 4E was pure HF.

Good, because they're not .

I say that many people want D&D -any edition- to work more like HF game. This is undeniable...

Yes. It's also undeniable that some people prefer more S&S-influenced campaigns. But that doesn't automatically indicate a preference in edition.

That is why -my thesis- in order to make the current prevalent campaign and adventure design work, one that is more rooted in HF than in S&S...

Zul, I don't think you've correctly demonstrated there is a greater demand for High Fantasy today.

Players might indeed want lower PC mortality and treasure parcels. That doesn't mean they want all the trappings of high fantasy (sweeping sagas, showdowns between Good and Evil), it doesn't even mean they want an emphasis on story.

 

[Zulgyan]

Ok... which edition supports better a HF style campaign?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Yeah, see, I wondered if maybe that's what you meant. So I do disagree after all. How did players "bully" DMs because of something in the game itself? That seems an odd and certainly unproveable assertion to make. If DMs let themselves be bullied, I don't know how playing OD&D, BD&D, 1e, 2e, 3e, or 4e is going to have any effect on that.

I call it bullying, but that isn't quite the right word. I'm not sure what word would be the right one. The phenomenon, which to me is unique to 3E, is where a player coud have greater system mastery than a DM to the point where the DM could be so overwhelmed that the only way to challenge the player outside of DM Fiat. I've seen it happen. In 1E/2E, the system wasn't deep enough to hide this level of system mastery, and DMs were not limited to using the same mechanics PCs use and its hard for a player to dominate a DM with system mastery when the DM has permission from the system to just make stuff up. In 4E, things go in the other direction, as the power level of the game is very predictable from the DM's chair, with creature/character level being such a strong indicator of power that system mastery can't really challenge it. At the very least, system mastery cannot challenge things to the point where the DM is threatened with losing control of the game.