How Do You Get Over All Of The Number Crunching?

[hong]

Ramble on....

Whenever I feel the need to ramble, I simply start up the mpeg depicting acts unutterable in the presence of Eric's grandma, and before long, I'm all mellow again.

Take scribing scrolls. How many scrolls can you create a day? One, it says so in the rules. How many spells can you put on a scroll in one day... ??? It doesn't say. It tells you everything you need to know on how to make the rolls, checks, cost, and xp's needed, but it doesn't say exactly how many you can do.

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The rule is vague. At first I ruled that you could only do one, and that the word "scroll" was defined as: One spell on a piece of parchment. Then in the module I ran, I gave out a pre-made piece of treasure. A scroll with two spells on it. The spell casters about had a fit in their chairs!! A scroll with TWO spells on it.

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It's a miracle! Well since that time (and as they increase in level, therefore being able to do more stuff) they want to make scrolls with more than one spell on them. Why not, I reasoned. I change the rule to you can put up to 1,000 gold pieces worth of spells on a scroll in one day. What happens? The cleric makes a scroll with 40 cure light wounds on it. You do the math.

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I missed the small bit in the rules mentioned in the wrong spot that you needed the spell memorized to put it into the item. I made a mistake... When I corrected it, I had my next house rule; you can only put as many spells on a scroll as the caster's highest spell level available to him.

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So in essence, 9 spells on a scroll is the highest you would ever be able to achieve (unless you play with FR 10th level spell bull-crap). Or Epic Level crap. Or Deities Level crap. Anyway, the point was that in one week I've got three new house rules for something that should have been spotted if the designers actually played the game and REALLY cared about what they were releasing. At least some web stuff to correct the simple mistakes. Try sending a request to Wizards for an OFFICIAL rules clarification. They are so scared of the tidal-wave of backlash they get over every decision that they don't even answer most of the time. I think there is a phone number to call. I haven't tried that yet...

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So this brings me to my conclusion about why the game has flaws now. It just came to me. The guys who designed the game were so afraid of the backlash that they would receive from the fans that they attempted to create a definite rule for every obvious circumstance.

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Everything else is left with vague interpretations by the teaming masses. I honestly think that they've done a great job and I appreciate the efforts, without them, I would have never of had the imagination (or the sheer willpower to take on the endeavor) to make up such a complicated game.

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Go take a look on the face of newcomer to the game. Better yet, try to explain it to one of your 'cool' co-workers some time. Just try and explain what the game is to a girl. They will all look at you, and hopefully you picked a good friend to try with, and say, "Looks pretty complicated." I don't think real life gets as complicated as this game does now. It used to be that I made up the rules, and no one argued BECAUSE there wasn't a rule to look up in the PH that contradicted the ruling. So this takes me right back to the beginning, there are a LOT of rules in this game.

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A LOT. And the designers have done a hell of a job making it balanced. It kills me when I hear someone complain about how they are going to redesign haste or harm... or polymorph. That type of person is just the creature that the designers in their almost infinite wisdom missed. That is the guy who uses the depth of the rules to support any type of nonsense that he is trying to attempt, and the big problem is, that you shouldn't do anything but smile because those were the rules that you thought would leave the rules problems behind.

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Rambling off....


Thanks again for the help and the advice. I really appreciate your efforts here. I need a 12 step DM support group... I really do...

No problem, mate! Crackatube!

 

[Christian Walker]

Make the PCs More Responsible

If a player is bogging down play trying to get all his modifiers together, skip him.

Move on and don't waste your time doing his job.

Demand that they write down all of their attack routines on paper so that the accounting is visible and readilt accessible.

After they've been skipped a few times, they clue in real fast.

 

[EarthsShadow]

These are some of the reasons why I have stopped playing d20. I had a book of 25 pages of house rules and it was only getting bigger with all the various releases of splat books, feat books, spell books, monster books, feat books, prestige class books, feat books, monster books, prestige class books, the occasional campaign setting boook, monster books, and alternate rules for all the skills it just got ridiculous.

I also just got Savage Worlds and played a quick game session. I was in charge of 8 zombies and a zombie master and there was 4 players. The entire combat took 10 minutes, and the latter two to three minutes was actually roleplaying after the combat was over. It was very fast paced, and I think part of that is because the rules are written in a way to promote a fast pace.

D&D is not written that way. It is written in a way for the person to really think about their decisions, and I have seen people take up to five to seven full minutes to make a single combat decision. Talk about boring! It's combats like that that make the game a drag. After I ran the savage worrlds combat I took the same encounter with D&D and similar characters.

It took over an hour for all the players to make their characters, and the combat took another hour. I am not kidding. Sure you can say that some things the players could take responsibility for, but many players don't want to and they leave it to the DM to handle.

In comparing these two games alone I would put my money down on Savage Worlds, but another reason is because I am burned out on D&D. After playing the same game for over two years it got tiring to try to create a good NPC encoutner where I know I am going to get into a fight. Sure, all the various feats and classes and races can add versatility, but when it took me an hour to create a good NPC the way I want him/her, thats too long. With Savage Worlds, that same NPC took me about 20 to 25 minutes and I was ready to go.

My answer to how to get over the vast number crunching of d20 is to play another game where that isn't a problem. If you insist on playing d20, then use a computer program as suggested, put some more responsibility on players (if they are willing), learn it and study it so you get more familiar with it, etc... and then play another game.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Personally, I'd rather indulge in onanism while viewing mpegs of acts unutterable in the presence of Eric's grandma than use words like s*mulationist, n*rrativist or g*mist. Even though it's a bit messier.


Hong "Gygaxian polysyllabist" Ooi

Don't front Hong. You know you'd rather indulge in onanism while viewing mpegs of acts unutterable in the presence of Eric's grandma than just about anything else in this world.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

I also just got Savage Worlds and played a quick game session. I was in charge of 8 zombies and a zombie master and there was 4 players. The entire combat took 10 minutes, and the latter two to three minutes was actually roleplaying after the combat was over. It was very fast paced, and I think part of that is because the rules are written in a way to promote a fast pace.

D&D is not written that way. It is written in a way for the person to really think about their decisions, and I have seen people take up to five to seven full minutes to make a single combat decision. Talk about boring! It's combats like that that make the game a drag. After I ran the savage worrlds combat I took the same encounter with D&D and similar characters.

It took over an hour for all the players to make their characters, and the combat took another hour. I am not kidding. Sure you can say that some things the players could take responsibility for, but many players don't want to and they leave it to the DM to handle.

No offense, but you've got some slooooow players. That fight would have lasted about 5 minutes in my D&D game. And that's if no one had Great Cleave and/or Whirlwind Attack.

I don't know if this Savage Worlds is anything like Deadlands. I remember Deadlands used to take FOREVER to make characters, slightly longer if your players were newbies. I liked Deadlands, but try making a bunch of NPCs for that game without doing some major fudging.

 

[WizarDru]

It took over an hour for all the players to make their characters, and the combat took another hour. I am not kidding. Sure you can say that some things the players could take responsibility for, but many players don't want to and they leave it to the DM to handle.

I have to back up TW here. In one of my most recent combats, my group was approximately 18th-19th level, had six PCs of this level, two very old copper dragons, a solar and they did battle with three advanced half-fire elemental learnen pyrohydras...and the combat took about twelve minutes. The time to stat the monsters out was about a half-hour prior to the game.

I have run a combat with those same six pcs, two familiars, a mount and a cohort, against twenty-six advanced 'blue' bugebears, and three members of the Pale Grin from Enemies&Allies (approx CR 14 per member). Total battle time? About forty-five minutes.

Combat can get bogged down, it's true. But that's little to do with 3E, and more to do with individual groups and combats. Figuring out how to dispel magic used to take fifteen minutes EVERY TIME. Then we figured it out so we wouldn't have to reference it every time, and now it takes fifteen seconds. And so it goes.

I have my share of issues with 3e...but they remain similar to issues I've had in many other systems, as well.

And really, the power of 'fudging it' should not be underestimated.