woodelf said:
Please identify the "opportunities" that i am mislabeling as liabilities, and the "restrictions" that i have misidentified as freedoms. Because, honestly, i don't even see how you're applying this analogy/analysis to my argument. Seriously.
Well, you talk about these "repercussions" as some ominous result that will descend on the DM from peeved 3e gods.
The opportunity you are mislabelling is the opportunity to rewrite a mechanic in one place and extend those changes into other places. It is purely optional. You keep speaking of extension as some kind of requirement and therefore automatically a bad thing. It is like saying lakes are bad because I might get the urge to jump in and drown.
That's not at all what i said. I said that, if you choose not to apply consistency it will (1) be very noticable and (2) might have some significant unintended repurcussions. And, contrariwise, a lack of interaction between distinct subsystems means that, even if you totally screw up a subsystem, it won't affect the others, because they simply don't inter-relate.
Which is another way of saying "If you fail to mindlessly extend house rules everywhere logically possible, you are in danger of building up a horrible mess that might some day be as bad as 1e/2e." And this is a problem with 3e? How?
You are also implicitly making a "One True Way To Houserule" argument. Do you realize that?
In other words, lots of variations on the same core. How is that more freedom than lots of variations on half-a-dozen radically different cores? It might not be less (orders of infinity and all that), but how is it more?
That is a fair point, but it is ultimately a subjective judgement which is more useful. I find diversity built on a similar general theme more useful to me than an extremely broad array of unconnected options. If I want radical ideas I have a shelf of other RPGs from which to draw inspiration. YMMV.
Yes. But not without repurcussions. Let's take a simple example: double all skill point allocations, and raise the max skill ranks to level +20. Suddenly, Tumble becomes a super-powerful skill, because the DC to avoid an AoO is based on the attacker's roll, and you've just given the tumbler a potential 10-15pt advantage. Likewise for any other task where a skill interacts with some other mechanic.
First of all, it is a little bizarre to me to consider a big rule change without a clearly stated purpose. Unless you like swinging a sledgehammer blindfolded.
Second of all, this is a bad example because 3e is still perfectly playable if I use your suggestions as is. Losing AoOs from movement actually simplifies things in a way that some people prefer. IMO, these changes would not be the best match for classic FRP campaigns, but it might make sense for a swashbuckling pirate game FREX. 3e is actually quite robust.
Third of all, it is trivial to come up with similar sized changes that "break" 1e/2e if the DM does not think through the repurcussions. The simplest example would be a low wealth campaign where the DM does not think through what happens to a party that fights a magical creature without any magical weapons.
Huh? Didn't you just apply a sensible analogy exactly backwards? How does a codified system give you more freedom than a lack of system? I can accept a claim that it gives no less--but how does it give more? More specifically, i fail to see how you can analogize, of the two systems (AD&D2, D&D3E), AD&D to either "freedom from opportunity" or a prison cell. I'm not sure i'd use that analogy for either system, but surely, if anything, the system with greater codification is the one more deserving of that analogy.
I was unclear.
1e/2e carves up mechanics and stuffs them into secure little pens. The advantage, as you state it, is that the walls are built tall enough there is no point in considering what happens in other cells. Nothing can leak out. Anything that escapes will wither and die if it wanders into a foreign cell. And the hard work done to renovate one location are of no value anywhere else. This is the state of affairs where you feel the most free to make rules changes.
3e also carves up mechanics into pens. The big difference is that the walls between the cells is as low or high as the DM chooses. If I come up with a Houserule in one place, I can let it escape and fraternize with the rest of the system
if I choose to. Or I can keep that can keep an impolite little houserule locked up in its cell -- I make the cell walls high by DM fiat. Or I can let it have visiting hours with a handpicked number of other mechanics. The key point is that the cell walls are as high or as low as I want them to be.
The bottom line: You seem to be arguing that the fell demons Repercussion and Consistency will not allow me to keep unruly 3e houserules in a cell or cells of my choosing. And if I tempt their wrath, I will be horribly cursed with a game that might slightly resemble the hodgepdge that is 1e/2e.
The peculiar thing is you seem to believe that this is a weakness of 3e, when it really is a backhanded compliment against 1e/2e.
