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

[overgeeked]

At least it's not SCDIWCh. I never groked to that.

Where was that order used? And how is it less weird than SDCIWCh? Besides familiarity.

 

[Fifth Element]

I don't think anyone is disagreeing that if the DM sets down table rules and you agree to them but they don't work out, the rule becomes unfair. The DM sets the rules, the players take it or leave it.

Many people definitely do disagree with that. Me, for instance. I believe that the rules need to be agreed ahead of character creation and gameplay, but I don't agree that the DM should dictate what those rules are. Everyone at the table is playing the game, and everyone should have input about the rules. The DM is no more important than any other player at the table. The DM does have the power of the final decision in case of contested rules, because someone has to because you'll never fully agree on everything. But the idea that if the DM prefers rule X and everyone else at the table prefers Rule Y, therefore you're going to use Rule X is not a good one.

This is probably influenced by the fact that I've really only ever played with friends or friends of friends. The idea that I would tell my friends "this is how it is, if you don't like it you can kick rocks" is untenable.

 

[Fifth Element]

Tangent, but may be relevant...

Do not confuse probability with observed frequency. A given group of people does not generate a statistically relevant number of characters. The probability that any one character will be above, or below, the set point-buy level may be known, but the frequency is only guaranteed to match that over large numbers of characters. A typical group is very likely to defy that it in some way or other, due to the small number of characters generated.

So, while the odds are one way, the result can easily be one person getting repeatedly hosed or favored by this approach.

Case in point, as I mentioned above the chance of rolling a 1E PHB paladin 3d6-in-order is 1 in 1,062. And yet I rolled a 1E PHB paladin 3d6-in-order the second time I ever rolled up a character. And it was the very first AD&D character I ever rolled up. I had a BECMI cleric first, and then the paladin.

 

[tetrasodium]

That might be what you are discussing, but it's not what we were discussing.

In 1e, an elf MUST have an 8 Charisma. (PHB). You have a cool idea for an elf wizard. You roll in SDCIWCh order and get 9, 14, 12, 15, 10, 6. You cannot be an elf per the RAW. Is that acceptable? For a number of people: no. The rolls I got shouldn't disqualify me from the race I wanted. Not for something as common as an elf. Now you as a DM might opt to allow me to adjust something. Perhaps I can ignore the racial minimum and play an awkward elf. Perhaps you'll allow me to switch scores, or arrange them to taste, or maybe just raise a 6 to an 8 since that's not like it's going to be power creep. Or you can put your foot down, scream RAW is RAW and demand I play something else other than my elf idea.

THAT'S what people are having a problem with. And it was an easy problem to fix since removing racial min/max doesn't seem to have broken the game except for some people still upset halflings can get as strong as half-orcs.

Yes in 1st edition but 3.5dmg170 also included rules for roll stats in order (option 7), I've been talking about 3.x because it still supported many of the things being discussed & was recent enough that the added similarity to 5e makes it easier for more people to discuss the topic. Modern d&d has taken your complaint to such an extreme pedestal that all other ability score generation methods were removed except the one used to generate the elite array & 4d6drop1 arrange as desired. I don't know what options 4e had for generating attributes, but modern d&d has very much pushed the ideas that the GM is only a tourguide to serve the players & removing all of the alternate methods from print is a symptom of that.

As to 1e specifically...

Spoiler: there were several methods then too, roll in order was only one of them

The books presented choices for how attributes could be generated, at least one of those choices pretty much allowed you to choose while some of the others did not. If you agree to the rules set for a game you've agreed & should be expected to follow them or find some other game

I would agree if the reason given wasn't 'to get them out of there comfort zone'

yeah but that wasn't the scenero at all. It was "This person likes playing fighters so I will make them roll in order stats so they don't get to play a fighter unless they are lucky"

except you aren't making a world and character creation rules to play but to 'teach your players' thatSince we are getting into thcc sounds like entitlement on YOUR end

Since we are getting into the highly irrelevant details of the last specific game where I required players roll in order, I described it here. The pitch was what I described there with the roll in order stipulation. One player asked the reasonable question of why & the answer was "warforged are created to order, they don't have a normal upbringing with choices. That forces you out of your comfort zones with characters who never even got to decide what their comfort zone should be & helps you feel how powerless they might have felt about some things". Everyone said "cool sounds fun, when do we start"

If "this person"(bob) likes playing fighters & agreed to that but chose to simply ignore or cheat on the rules set for a given campaign they don't get to complain about being forced to not play a fighter because they agreed to the rules.

 

[Willie the Duck]

There’s a huge false dichotomy going on here. A game is not only able to exist either as a total random grinder-fest or as an auto-success cakewalk. There is a gradient. You can use point array and choose your character class and have a backstory and not expect to die at first level due to a poor roll and still have the game be plenty challenging. And can have it be challenging on many levels, including due to mechanics, luck, tactics, obstacles, the world, and – never should it be forgotten as this is an RPG – the character themselves and all that entails: personal obstacles, crisis of faiths, overcoming, drama, and etc.

What's interesting to me is that once you get outside of a D&D-only perspective, a singular position on this matter makes little sense. No one picking up a GURPS book is ever going to not see the value in being able to make exactly the character you envision (within some well-understood relative-power constraint). Likewise, no one who ever had fun rolling up (and often pushing their luck and then having to start over) Traveller characters isn't going to realize the excitement one can derive from emergent-instead-of-chosen qualities. People can see the value in each and recognize how each can play out in different but equally enjoyable play experiences.

 

[Baron Opal II]

A tremendous amount of art, increasing font size, and a plummeting word count.

I'm curious to compare the word count between the AD&D and 5e DMG.

 

[Remathilis]

Where was that order used? And how is it less weird than SDCIWCh? Besides familiarity.

4e. Str and Con were used for Fortitude, Wisdom and Charisma for Will, and Dexterity and Intelligence for Reflex. So they swapped Con and Dex in the order to put each pair next to each other. It would have been fine for new players, but to someone hard wired on the old method for 2e and 3e, it was close enough to allow your brain to think it was the old order, but different enough I routinely thought my Rogue's Dex score was 12 on first glance.

 

[overgeeked]

A tremendous amount of art, increasing font size, and a plummeting word count.

I'm curious to compare the word count between the AD&D and 5e DMG.

There’s also the question of the grade-level the text is written to. I haven’t checked, but I suspect the text has dropped a few grade-levels over the years. Especially if we’re comparing high Gygaxian to modern writing.

 

[overgeeked]

4e. Str and Con were used for Fortitude, Wisdom and Charisma for Will, and Dexterity and Intelligence for Reflex. So they swapped Con and Dex in the order to put each pair next to each other. It would have been fine for new players, but to someone hard wired on the old method for 2e and 3e, it was close enough to allow your brain to think it was the old order, but different enough I routinely thought my Rogue's Dex score was 12 on first glance.

I was hardwired with B/X and AD&D, so it was weird and new either way. DC or CD didn’t matter.

 

[Fifth Element]

There’s also the question of the grade-level the text is written to. I haven’t checked, but I suspect the text has dropped a few grade-levels over the years.

Only if you look at Gygax's florid writing specifically. B/X and BECMI were written in simple and clear language. Early AD&D was not.