Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9536946" data-attributes="member: 29398">That's something of a chicken-and-egg situation, I think.  There's many tweaks that can be made to the design with the specific intent and result of making campaigns last longer provided the players and DM are willing.My take is the game should be designed for the long haul, not to throw short-haulers under the bus but to allow both types of play to thrive.That's a mindset I'd like to change somewhat, not to force players to run whatever's handed to them but to be more flexible about what they're willing to play and be more ready-willing-able to quickly pivot from one character or concept to another.  It ties in with the philosophical difference in char-gen between deciding what to play after you've seen the initial rolls and going in with a preset notion of what you'll play and then using the mechanics to build it.  Me, most of the time I'm all about the former, and even if-when I come in with a pre-set notion I'm ready to pivot if the dice don't co-operate.That's the world I - and most of the people I know who are older than college age - do live in.  And good on you for staying committed to your campaign through the player turnover.Indeed, WotC-era D&D characters take far too long to roll up!  Tolkein fanboys aren't the problem, though; as 0e-1e D&D was quite Tolkein-based and one could bang out a new character pretty fast.The main cuplrits are a) chooseable feats and b) assignable skills.  Skills came online in mid-late 2e, feats with 3e.  Get rid of those, along with at least 3/4 of today's PC-playable species, and make everything hard-coded class abilities that come online at set levels and both char-gen and level-ups become (relatively) a breeze.</blockquote>

Verification