Is it DnD, or MtG? (General Griping)

[Geron Raveneye]

You're experiiencing "missing time"? That's a common symptom seen is UFO abduction cases. Can I interest you in a tinfoil hat?

Nope, but if you manage to get your hands on the next winning numbers of the german lottery, I'd be very obliged. As we all know, time = money, which means if I had more money, I would have more time to spend on roleplaying, too. As it is right now, I'm happy if I manage to update my campaign diary for my IK group frequently. :\

 

[M.L. Martin]

I believe that D&D is becoming more like Hero, not Magic, and that's fine by me. Your Mileage May Vary.

I've spoken out in favor of the Creeping HEROization before, and I will continue to do so--I like HERO, I like d20, and combining the two would make me a happy camper indeed. However, for that to work (or at least to satisfy me), we need to open up the underpinnings of the d20 System.

One of the things that can make a HERO writeup so intimidating is that the system shows most of its work. Everything is broken down to basic elements, with each modifier shown in detail. Once you learn how to use those basic elements, you can do more or less anything within the system's basic assumptions (which are kindly spelled out reasonably well in both the 4E and 5E rulebooks). In addition, the point system allows for what is at least an attempt at precise and clear balance between different abilities. (How well it works in practice is open to debate--after all, it's been over two decades, and there are still arguments over costing STR. But aside from some debatable points or outliers, the system seems to do its job.)

Most forms of d20--especially the 8,000-ton Great Wyrm that is D&D--are far more closed. We get a declaration of 'This is how this ability works', but not 'how we built it' or 'how it balances with other abilities' in most cases. In earlier editions, that wasn't so much of a problem, since they were loose and uneven enough that a group could wing it. Yes, this was like curing chicken pox with measles in many cases, but it did give a sense of freedom that many seem to feel is lost.

As it stands, D&D gives the impression (to me at least) of being an elaborately interwoven, interdependent framework that is so precisely balanced that even changing little details like wealth allotment or class skill access could set the whole structure teetering on the brink of collapse. Whether that's the case in actual play, my experience is too limited to tell, but as Campbell points out, the tone and style of the WotC books doesn't help matters by leaving you high and dry when it comes to the underpinning assumptions and value of classes, feats, abilities, and spells.

Matthew L. Martin

 

[Orius]

The main problem I see are the scaling items. Belt of Giant Strength just gave you a +2 back in the day. Now it goes up to a +6, so on and so forth. The stats and modifiers are FAR more important than ever before and things that allow bonus' are thus FAR more important.

If I remember correctly, Gauntlets of Ogre Power in 2e set your Strength to 18/00. Girdles of Giant Strength set your strength from 19 to 24 depending on whether it was a Girdle of Hill, Stone, Frost, Fire, Cloud or Storm Giant Strength. Possibly the reason why the increase in Strength seemed less was because nobody played a fighter with less than 18/xx Strength anyway.

I agree with FireLance here. The older versions of these items set the items to a specific score. If your score was low, it had a much more dramatic effect than if the score was 16+, and most people would put their highest score in the cass's prime requisite. Hell, you look at the 2e gauntlets of ogre power, they boost the Str score of an average human by +8. In 3e terms, that's very powerful, on the scale of epic items. In 3e, the boost of that item is only +2. So the average human only gets the score bumped to 12, a characger with 16 Str gets a roughly similar bomus (Exception Strength kind of snarls things here), and it actually has a use for someone who has an 18 Str already. There was a conscious design in 3e to change items that set abilities to a certain score to ability bonuses.

Yes, but they are plusses that are more clearly defined and coherent and work together more sensibly. While magic items with odd restrictions and interactions may be more "interesting" (why does the AC bonus from a cloak of protection work with nonmagical leather but not any other type of armor?) I'd rather spend less time worrying about magical quirks and concentrate on what I consider to be the important bits: the heros, the plot and the world.

I agree here too. The whole concept of bonus types and stacking eliminated a whole bunch of rather arbitrary rules about which items could and couldn't work together, particularly stuff which offered AC or Str bonuses. In earlier editions the stuff didn't work together, simply because the game said so, and the game said so to prevent characters from getting too "powerful". At least now, there's a consistant reason for why bonuses don't stack.

Also, magic items in 3e lack any and all flavor. They are just pluses with fancy names.

So were these items in earlier versions. A vanilla bag of holding is still vanilla, whether the rules explaining its function in the games are Basic D&D, 1e, 2e or 3.xe.

 

[Campbell]

I've spoken out in favor of the Creeping HEROization before, and I will continue to do so--I like HERO, I like d20, and combining the two would make me a happy camper indeed. However, for that to work (or at least to satisfy me), we need to open up the underpinnings of the d20 System.

One of the things that can make a HERO writeup so intimidating is that the system shows most of its work. Everything is broken down to basic elements, with each modifier shown in detail. Once you learn how to use those basic elements, you can do more or less anything within the system's basic assumptions (which are kindly spelled out reasonably well in both the 4E and 5E rulebooks). In addition, the point system allows for what is at least an attempt at precise and clear balance between different abilities. (How well it works in practice is open to debate--after all, it's been over two decades, and there are still arguments over costing STR. But aside from some debatable points or outliers, the system seems to do its job.)

Most forms of d20--especially the 8,000-ton Great Wyrm that is D&D--are far more closed. We get a declaration of 'This is how this ability works', but not 'how we built it' or 'how it balances with other abilities' in most cases. In earlier editions, that wasn't so much of a problem, since they were loose and uneven enough that a group could wing it. Yes, this was like curing chicken pox with measles in many cases, but it did give a sense of freedom that many seem to feel is lost.

As it stands, D&D gives the impression (to me at least) of being an elaborately interwoven, interdependent framework that is so precisely balanced that even changing little details like wealth allotment or class skill access could set the whole structure teetering on the brink of collapse. Whether that's the case in actual play, my experience is too limited to tell, but as Campbell points out, the tone and style of the WotC books doesn't help matters by leaving you high and dry when it comes to the underpinning assumptions and value of classes, feats, abilities, and spells.

Matthew L. Martin

While I am also an advocate of opening up more of the d20 system, I believe that my previous statement was worded too strongly. While I still enjoy Hero, it is too codefied for my tastes. On the other hand, D&D as it stands is not codefied enough for my tastes, espicially in reguards to Challenge Ratings and Magic Item Creation. Thankfully in this reguard, Upper Krust's CR System and die_kluge's Artificier's Handbook have helped immensely.

As far as I'm concerned D&D lacks the modularity that I'm looking for, but my primary concern, at least as far as this thread's topic goes, remains the unforeseen market realities that the OGL brought to the table. I'd argue that during the initial design of 3e, WotC had no idea that we would be hit with such an explosion of 'crunchy bits'. They offered no real advice on this issue because they didn't know it was going to occur, and I'm quite certain they didn't foresee that people would take their guidelines so seriously. The acquisition by Hasbro and departure of key designers further muddied the waters. And so far, WotC has tried to deal with the market realities, rather than address a serious issues I believe the d20 market has unleashed.

The d20 market, and a reliance on designers who did not partake in the initial design of 3e has in a number of ways forced DMs to become ametuer game designers. Market forces when combined with the strong language evoked in the DMG has caused a feeling of DM disempowerment in some segments of the community. As it currently stands, disenfranchised DMs do not have the right tools to retain control of their games, to play D&D in the way they want to play it. They do not know how to look over a feat, a new rule, a magic item, monster or spell and judge its viability for their games. They are dealing with player pressure and market pressure. They need meaningful guidance on how to deal with these factors, while maintaining a sufficient level of game balance. We have HEROization without HEROized GMing advice, and this has become problematic.

The more I think about this matter, the more I believe it deserves its own thread.

 

[Orius]

The point I wished to make was that, partly because there is much higher competition, partly because there is a lot more business to make than before with D&D, advertisement from all sides and the design of supplements themselves have begun to try and make themselves look absolutely indispensable...

Wasn't that true in earlier verisons of the game? Weren't the 2e splatbooks and accessories presented as must-have items? Hell, I remember that a lot of 2e books used the word "indispensable" on the back cover.

 

[MerricB]

One advantage that D&D has over GURPS and HERO, in my opinion, is that it doesn't use a universal point system to keep things balanced. It retains the modular features of the feat system, but those are kept in check by their limited number and pre-requisites.

I think a lot of the advice some people are looking for will be found in the DMG2; the 3.5e MM has already given a great deal more help to people designing monsters and assigning challenge ratings.

However, and I can't stress this enough, a universal point system is not something that deals well with the complexity of interactions in D&D or other RPGs - especially one that has such a wide-ranging scale of ability power as D&D.

Cheers!

 

[Storyteller01]

Wasn't that true in earlier verisons of the game? Weren't the 2e splatbooks and accessories presented as must-have items? Hell, I remember that a lot of 2e books used the word "indispensable" on the back cover.

Yep, but now 3 e has the capital to make it work!!

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Wasn't that true in earlier verisons of the game? Weren't the 2e splatbooks and accessories presented as must-have items? Hell, I remember that a lot of 2e books used the word "indispensable" on the back cover.

Is very well possible...I have to admit to never really buying much stuff for 2E games beyond the core rules, setting boxes like Ravenloft or Dragonlance, and adventures if I liked them. The rest was more easy to ignore because 2E never was meant to be as modular as 3E is. In a way, the game had set itself as being basically complete with the core rulebooks in my mind, and it worked kinda nice. I did enjoy Tome of Magic for additional spells and priest spheres, but that's about it. And Complete Psionics, of course.

3E is all about flexibility and being modular, being able to shape a character exactly as you envision him by the use of feats and skills and special abilities. And I love the concept just as much...but it makes the core rules feel "incomplete" in my mind, because they only contain the bare bones of the D&D richness. It feels like it is necessary to get the rest of the books, to have even more options to be able to detail a character even deeper. And with 3.5E, it all started again, with substantial changes to a lot of things, which meant changes to a lot of the options afterwards, reprinted books etc. In my eyes, the changes from 3E to 3.5E could have been done with in one update book for the core rules, 128 pages, softcover, for $19.99, and free updates as web-enhancements for the splatbooks. But no, the whole game had to be reprinted after 3 years of existence. Does sound like Magic business style to me. :\

One problem I had with 3E at first was that it took a lot out of my style of gaming and GMing. It started mapping out a lot of options by introducing feats, options we handled by creative use of the dice before...but it also set in stone the fact that special options should be dealt with through feats, and not through "arbitrary dice rolls". The skill system has become much more reasonable, even if it still is weird to have characters learn to be better diplomats by basically slaying monsters , but it also has become a big point of the balance between character classes, and where I was able to "fudge" a check for one of my players for the sake of roleplaying, it's much harder now with set DCs and specific modifiers. Coming from Basic D&D and AD&D, it took a lot of mental getting used to it, to be honest.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The rest was more easy to ignore because 2E never was meant to be as modular as 3E is.

Ponder the irony of the juxtaposition of the above comment with all the anti-3E posts.

 

[Storyteller01]

The d20 market, and a reliance on designers who did not partake in the initial design of 3e has in a number of ways forced DMs to become ametuer game designers. Market forces when combined with the strong language evoked in the DMG has caused a feeling of DM disempowerment in some segments of the community. As it currently stands, disenfranchised DMs do not have the right tools to retain control of their games, to play D&D in the way they want to play it. They do not know how to look over a feat, a new rule, a magic item, monster or spell and judge its viability for their games. They are dealing with player pressure and market pressure. They need meaningful guidance on how to deal with these factors, while maintaining a sufficient level of game balance. We have HEROization without HEROized GMing advice, and this has become problematic.

The more I think about this matter, the more I believe it deserves its own thread.

I'd love to read it. Let me know if you or another user starts that thread.