D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[Remathilis]

So let me make sure I've got this right: if a system doesn't give you what you want the solution is to outright cheat until it does?

How can that possibly end well in any way?

I mean that's the sort of thinking that gets people ostracized not just from individual tables but from entire gaming communities, once they get caught - which is inevitable provided the DM and-or other players are the least bit observant.

Depends on how sly they are.

In the halycon days, I was very aware players (from multiple play groups, no less) tended to:
1. Ignore a exceptionally low rolls (1s or 2s on the die) when rolling stats or HP and either coyly reroll or just give themselves the average roll (rolled a 1 on your hd fighter? Adds 5 to HP).
2. Roll 7+ times for ability scores and choose the six best
3. Roll 5 times for ability scores and assign a 16 to your primary.
4. Nudge ability scores up a point when transferring them from scratch paper to sheet, especially if they missed a racial or class min.
5. Wait until the DM and other players are busy and roll/fudge as desired (usually done with replacement PCs worked on while the rest of the group was finishing up the encounter).

Now, you have to understand that there was an unspoken acknowledgment that this was acceptable as long as you weren't abusing the system. The guy who "rolled" scores with two 16s , two 17s, and two 18s was chastised for cheating, but the guy who just happened to roll the minimums needed to be a ranger was ignored.

Long into 3.5, enough of us had gotten bored with the wink-nudge game that point buy and fixed HP (borrowed from RPGA) became the norm. Without the subtle cheating, both average ability scores and HP totals decreased slightly.

Now, could one of us (or many of us) called out all the cheating? Sure. That player would have had a harder time finding players to play with. And I'm sure there were players who didn't adjust and there were ones who tried to abuse the system. However, the majority of the time I played 2e and early 3e when rolling stats was standard, cheating was assumed. Put another way: I never saw anyone who wanted to play a particular race or class ever stopped by their ability scores.

So between the removal of minimum ability scores and the use of point buy and fixed HP, we finally abandoned the unspoken rule of chargen and dice. And I'm happier for it.

 

[HammerMan]

So let me make sure I've got this right: if a system doesn't give you what you want the solution is to outright cheat until it does?

How can that possibly end well in any way?

this is why 90% of people I know don't roll for stats anymore. The number of times people would scrap rolls caus they were bad, or out right cheated (depending on if in your mind scrapping your first set of rolls IS cheating) got too much.
Some DMs tried "all characters must be rolled in front of me" but that was already a big ask, and then ended with "I don't want these stats, so if you make me play them I will just put my lowest in con be a fighter and when I die take up game time rolling up my next" being implied but at least once out stated outright... it lead to people rolling, then deciding 'is this what i want' then rerolling or not... so it was easier to just adjust the system we used so we always got our expactations meet...

the fact that this also stopped "I want an 18 in my prime stat everytime" players and they seem happy with 15s from the standard array.

I mean that's the sort of thinking that gets people ostracized not just from individual tables but from entire gaming communities, once they get caught - which is inevitable provided the DM and-or other players are the least bit observant.

I have never seen someone ostracized for lieing about a game (kicked from a campaign is the worst I saw for that... and even then with an apology they almost all came back for next campaign). It was out of game lieing that got people ostracized in my experence.

 

[tetrasodium]

the fact that this also stopped "I want an 18 in my prime stat everytime" players and they seem happy with 15s from the standard array.

The standard array in modern d&d is what was once known as the elite array. The demand for more didn't stop with the introduction of point buy as the purge of standard challenging & low power point buy options ensuring that it is made more difficult for the gm to dial it down.

 

[HammerMan]

The standard array in modern d&d is what was once known as the elite array. The demand for more didn't stop with the introduction of point buy as the purge of standard challenging & low power point buy options ensuring that itis msde more difficult for the gm to dial it down.

I didn't realize that. In 2e we rolled for stats, and in 3e we rolled until we were almost ready to leave D&D and even then we went to point buy... it wasn't until 4e that we started useing arrays.

 

[Remathilis]

The standard array in modern d&d is what was once known as the elite array. The demand for more didn't stop with the introduction of point buy as the purge of standard challenging & low power point buy options ensuring that itis msde more difficult for the gm to dial it down.

Bear in mind the"elite" array was named to distinguish it from the "non-elite" array (13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8) used on NPC-classed NPCs (adept, warrior, etc). NPCs with PC class levels always used the elite array.

 

[HammerMan]

Bear in mind the"elite" array was named to distinguish it from the "non-elite" array (13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8) used on NPC-classed NPCs (adept, warrior, etc). NPCs with PC class levels always used the elite array.

oh god... I can imagine A LOT of shocked faces if ANY edition of D&D I sat down ant told them array (13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8).

 

[Remathilis]

oh god... I can imagine A LOT of shocked faces if ANY edition of D&D I sat down ant told them array (13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8).

I'm sure, but that array was used on NPC orc warriors, not PC half-orc fighters.

 

[tetrasodium]

Bear in mind the"elite" array was named to distinguish it from the "non-elite" array (13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8) used on NPC-classed NPCs (adept, warrior, etc). NPCs with PC class levels always used the elite array.

While true, it's a bit misleading to apply that to players as you wrote. The dmg had an extensive section dedicated to npc arrays and PC stat generation options on 3.5dmg 1pg69/170. That 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 is the 15 point "low power campaign" pointbuy option. Also present were the 22 point "Challenging campaign" 25 point "standard point buy" 28 & 32 point tougher & high powered campaigns & 5 rolling options. All of those

Spoiler: used different costs

Those differing costs meant that bob average with something like the elite array was broadly decent but behind Alice the idiot savant at her thing (usually combat) & needed gear to make up for it While Alice the idiot Savant had a wide range of real weaknesses that probably included a six* & needed gear to compensate for those. Alice could but a 16+2 or 18+2 in her prime stat sure, but she had to make up for that elsewhere and the gm still had other options they could point at while saying "use this one" for what rules alice & bob used for attribute generation/selection.

In modern d&d players still have the +2, cant select attribute buy options that imposed weaknesses like a bunch of 8's or real costs like a six& to top it off the game itself is designed so they don't need any type of the magical gear they once needed to be good or great in pretty much all areas.

*3.5 races were +2 to one stat & -2 to a second so a six was not only easy but actually fairly common for a pc.

oh god... I can imagine A LOT of shocked faces if ANY edition of D&D I sat down ant told them array (13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8).

It was the low power array so used either in games with lots of +x magic items or games like the survivors in vrgtr where a very similar array is in place on the survivor blocks. Unlike the survivors though there was a clear long term 1-20 path of advancement of that character. Even while basically using the low power pointbuy option for survivors, it & the others are not actually presented as an option a gm could point at for normal characters because the modern standard is that player characters are all on a hero to superhero track & must never be forced into badwrongfun as anything but.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So let me make sure I've got this right: if a system doesn't give you what you want the solution is to outright cheat until it does?

Let me rephrase it as seen by the people involved: "So, because you have an ethic of getting stuck with characters I don't want to play is good, I'm supposed to respect that though you don't respect mine? Yeah, sure."

How can that possibly end well in any way?

Simple. As long as they didn't get caught, no one who who cared was the wiser, and they still got to play within the range they wanted to play. It wasn't like these people were usually waiting until they got all 18's; their characters wouldn't stand out amidst other characters in play unless you carefully noted they never had duds, or carefully tracked that their attributes always would allow them to play types they wanted to play (so they guy who wanted to play MUs always had a character with at least an adequate INT).

Yes, it could blow up, but again, we're talking about people who didn't think the desire of people to force random rolls on them in the first place was legitimate, so they'd care--why?

I mean that's the sort of thinking that gets people ostracized not just from individual tables but from entire gaming communities, once they get caught - which is inevitable provided the DM and-or other players are the least bit observant.

Naw. As I said, I saw people who did this and really could not give a damn. It was also taken as a given that some of that was going on in most groups I encountered, and nobody could be bothered to check unless it got particularly egregious. The majority of it was just to manage minimums or make sure a character was at least functional as the class they wanted to play, so why would most people care?

Even by then, the only reason we were rolling for character generation at all was because that was how it was done in games we were playing, but it wasn't like it seemed like a particularly appealing approach generally. And it seemed better than swordbushing and other pretty much perverse processes.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Depends on how sly they are.

In the halycon days, I was very aware players (from multiple play groups, no less) tended to:
1. Ignore a exceptionally low rolls (1s or 2s on the die) when rolling stats or HP and either coyly reroll or just give themselves the average roll (rolled a 1 on your hd fighter? Adds 5 to HP).
2. Roll 7+ times for ability scores and choose the six best
3. Roll 5 times for ability scores and assign a 16 to your primary.
4. Nudge ability scores up a point when transferring them from scratch paper to sheet, especially if they missed a racial or class min.
5. Wait until the DM and other players are busy and roll/fudge as desired (usually done with replacement PCs worked on while the rest of the group was finishing up the encounter).

Now, you have to understand that there was an unspoken acknowledgment that this was acceptable as long as you weren't abusing the system. The guy who "rolled" scores with two 16s , two 17s, and two 18s was chastised for cheating, but the guy who just happened to roll the minimums needed to be a ranger was ignored.

Long into 3.5, enough of us had gotten bored with the wink-nudge game that point buy and fixed HP (borrowed from RPGA) became the norm. Without the subtle cheating, both average ability scores and HP totals decreased slightly.

Now, could one of us (or many of us) called out all the cheating? Sure. That player would have had a harder time finding players to play with. And I'm sure there were players who didn't adjust and there were ones who tried to abuse the system. However, the majority of the time I played 2e and early 3e when rolling stats was standard, cheating was assumed. Put another way: I never saw anyone who wanted to play a particular race or class ever stopped by their ability scores.

So between the removal of minimum ability scores and the use of point buy and fixed HP, we finally abandoned the unspoken rule of chargen and dice. And I'm happier for it.

This, and the attitudes toward it, all sound familiar. By the time 3e came along, most of us had been out of D&D for years, and most of the games we played hadn't used random gen (or put your finger on the scale enough that it wasn't a big issue). I mean, the truth was if you were rolling stats on 4D6 toss the lowest, raising totals so that you added bonus points until you hit that, and assigning stats after you rolled them, after a bit you started to ask why you were going through this silly dance? Some game had some issues where you didn't want to do pure point assignment because there were so many breakpoints that you could get degenerate results, but barring those there just didn't seem to be a point in random character generation anyway (anyone who liked some unpredictability could find ways to partly randomize their point assignment to suit themselves without forcing it on anyone else).