Is 3rd edition too "quantitative"

[ARandomGod]

3e gives a lot of attention to the "game" aspect of the RPG, and leaves the "role-playing" aspect in its proper place: with the players.

Actually, anyone who has looked at the Eberron material (especially Sharn) knows that Wizards have also provided many opportunities for those who lean towards the role-playing side of things. However, one of the main attractions of D&D is that it combines both role-playing with the game.

The emphasis that is placed on both is up to the DM and players.

Various supplements emphasise one or the other. Sharn: City of Towers is a good example of something that emphasises the role-playing and story elements of the game.

The Complete series, on the other hand, emphasise the game elements, though they aren't without role-playing elements.

Wizards try to cover the spectrum, and some people assume that everything Wizards do should be for _them_, and never mind anyone else. This is simply not true.

Cheers!

This is an interesting perspective. And a laudable way at playing yourself, I shall add. However, you have to look at the cultural context. The game is presented in such a way as to be imagination light. There is very little "here are some rules for you to take or modify" annd very heavy on "These are The Rules, use them or be Floundering in a Sea of Chaos".

Needless to say, I don't think chaos is all that bad. A sea of it is, obviously. ... but I digress.

Yes, I think that, in general, people should take these rules where they help, and play as best suits imagination. But I must say that I agree with the viewpoint that the game as written and the general culture that's built itself around it is very lawful, very strickt, and completely seperates "house rules" from "real rules". In such a way that definitly implies that "house rules" aren't real. Aren't important... aren't really fit for general consumption.

"For they are variations from the True Way. Take not the path that leads you astray from the Rules As Written, but let RAW be your constant guidline and watchword.

Personally, I judge a good GM by his reaction to the spell "Darkness". Any GM that rules that it generates light of any kind is (In my opinion) a very, very bad GM. I'm not saying I won't play under such a GM. I have... Let's face it, GM's give a lot, and I can put up with a lot from them. Even a bad lay is pretty good, as it were.

I'll close with the statement that I don't really think WoTC pays a lot of attention to the D&D world. And there's a lot of what consists of either very poor rules or very bad editing to back me up on that. But, in the end, they ARE out there making it. And like I said, even a pretty bad GM is giving you a place to play.

 

[nopantsyet]

I think those are interesting posts, and I'm a strong proponent of playing a flavorful game. I always thought the class names were cool, but useless. That information doesn't need to be determined by the rules. A 3rd level rogue should be called whatever the player decides he is. Maybe he's a novice agent in a noble's spy ring. That's very different from cat burgler, and doesn't require a rulebook to determine.

When the PCs find magic items, I never announce it as magical. I describe its appearance, and if they use they can observe its behavior. Of course they could always identify it--that must by definition quantify the powers of an item, and I'm fine with that. If they don't, I usually tell them after a session or two of using it. That gives them a little time to get a feel for it without the quantitative definition. But I don't want to bookkeep that indefinitely.

My emphasis is always on flavor over mechanic, but it is, after all, a game of numbers, and I feel no need to fight against that.

 

[Dark Jezter]

If I want fluff and description, I'll go read a novel. If I want RPG rules, I'll read a rulebook. The lack of fluff in 3e dosen't bother me in the slightest.

 

[MerricB]

This is an interesting perspective. And a laudable way at playing yourself, I shall add. However, you have to look at the cultural context. The game is presented in such a way as to be imagination light. There is very little "here are some rules for you to take or modify" annd very heavy on "These are The Rules, use them or be Floundering in a Sea of Chaos".

This is in the DMG. From the notes on the story-immersive game (page 8), the pages and pages of variant abilities, the notes on creating your own cosmology (page 167), the notes on limiting prestige classes - "We encourage you, as DM, to tightly limit the prestige classes available in your campaign" (page 176), there is a great amount of material that can be modified.

Why isn't it in the PHB? Because the players don't need to be confused. In the end, the feel of the game is a group decision, but it is greatly influenced by what the DM wants.

The PHB gives the basic rules of the game - the variants are placed in the DMG and the host of supplements for D&D.

Cheers!

 

[Kanegrundar]

True, but for a newbie -- and let's face it, D&D is an entry-level game -- the first product is the Player's Handbook. It should give a leg up on the setting, even though we veterans won't be using (unless you're a GH fan). A game has to have rules and a setting, whether it is a boardgame like Monopoly (Park Avenue and stuff), card game like Magic: The Gathering (set in Dominiara), or RPG like Vampire: The Requiem (an alternate horror earth setting). Those are two main selling points.

I guess, but most newbies are going to be playing with a DM that has done it before. Even for those groups that are starting totally cold (all new players and a newbie DM), there is still plenty of implied setting in the CR to get the creative juices flowing.

Kane

 

[reanjr]

True, but for a newbie -- and let's face it, D&D is an entry-level game -- the first product is the Player's Handbook.

Indeed. The first book a player is apt to read is the Player's Handbook and all other books in the game are going to be colored by what that player comes away from the Player's Handbook with. When a player reads pages and pages of rules, bonuses, and number-crunching, that's how they will look at the game from that point on. Adding fluff later doesn't work, because you've already got a generation of players who look into the new books for prestige classes, feats, and other enhancements to make their characters into better killing machines. They may read the fluff, but it isn't read in the same context that someone who never read the rules would read it in.

 

[Malic]

Not at all. I started with Rolemaster and later looked at Gurps (among others) before picking up D&D with 3.0 - not systems really big on fluff. It definitely hasn't made me into a rules lawyer or a tactician. The game is nothing without the imagination of the GM and players.

Maybe the PHB will be the first D&D book new players read. But it's unlikely to be their first book in the genre - and even if they've never read a novel, how about movies etc? People are likely attracted to this game because they want to use their imaginations, play with some of the fantasy elements they've seen.

Writing fluff into the rules a la 2nd Ed just makes it that much harder to apply them to any other setting besides what the writer had in mind. IMO, providing some clear numerical guidelines to help you build and run your own ideas is much more useful.

 

[reanjr]

Writing fluff into the rules a la 2nd Ed just makes it that much harder to apply them to any other setting besides what the writer had in mind. IMO, providing some clear numerical guidelines to help you build and run your own ideas is much more useful.

If they were truly only guidelines to help you build and run your own ideas, then the PHB wouldn't include anything but the Fighter, Wizard, and Cleric a smattering of example spells, and the idea of how the D20 rules mechanic works.

Instead they have given us non-generic fantasy archetypes and ideas that have nothing to do with any kind of fantasy a non-D&D player is likely to have encountered and in fact often contradict those ideas.

They also would probably actually give you the kind of advice you are alluding to. But there isn't any advice to be found throughout the three core books. It's just rules (with some really minor exceptions in the DMG).

 

[Malic]

OK, maybe 'guidelines' was the wrong word. I should have said it's a reasonably wide ranging and detailed ruleset for weighing up encounters (with the magic assistance level assumption, true - annoying), judging the success of actions, etc.

True, it's not a completely generic toolbox. But that wasn't what I was trying to say.

" ... that have nothing to do with any kind of fantasy a non-D&D player is likely to have encountered and in fact often contradict those ideas. "

Well, gotta agree with you there. Some of those D&D-isms are pretty ... different. I guess that's why third party stuff, alternative d20 settings etc get so much of my $ - looking for a more mythic feel I guess, especially with magic. If it can fit with the nice useful d20 rules base that everyone I know understands, so much the better.

But what I really meant to say was that the high crunch content of the core books is useful and not sucking the imagination out of the game or something, which seems to worry some people.

Making 'fluff' more integral to the core rules would, I feel, make them less useful.

The current system of core mechanics and plenty of variety of spinoffs of different flavours seems great to me.

Cheers!

 

[Wraith Form]

Not at all. I started with Rolemaster and later looked at Gurps (among others) before picking up D&D with 3.0 - not systems really big on fluff. It definitely hasn't made me into a rules lawyer or a tactician. The game is nothing without the imagination of the GM and players.

Maybe the PHB will be the first D&D book new players read. But it's unlikely to be their first book in the genre - and even if they've never read a novel, how about movies etc? People are likely attracted to this game because they want to use their imaginations, play with some of the fantasy elements they've seen.

Writing fluff into the rules a la 2nd Ed just makes it that much harder to apply them to any other setting besides what the writer had in mind. IMO, providing some clear numerical guidelines to help you build and run your own ideas is much more useful.

While I don't dispute what you're saying, I do also feel that a small section of the PHB should contain a "here's how you optionally could add fluff to your game" portion that reinforces and acknowledges how to add the imagination appropriately (i.e. plyer VS character knowledge, for example) for newer players. It could be a very a small section (doesn't have to be 90 pages; could even be sidebars, as mentioned earlier). Same with the DMG. IMHO, mind you.