Is there a need for a simplified D&D?

[rogueattorney]

I've been saying this for 10 years - ever since TSR junked D&D in 1993!

1. 3e (and 2e before it) is not a good game for people who aren't hard-core gamers. There's too much there. It's fine if I want to get together with my gamer buddies and have an intense campaign. However, if I want to have a quick game night with my wife, brother, and nieces and nephews who don't game much, it's impossible. Essentially, 3e completely misses out on the "Monopoly & Clue" croud.

2. There hasn't been a legitimate attempt at a serious "rules-lite" FRPG is YEARS. What Troll Lords is doing with C&C is very exciting to me simply for this reason alone. I've played all sorts of games for my entire life - from very complex war games to simple kids board games. I don't have any problem understanding complicated rules. However, for RPG's, I prefer less complicated rules and a more free and easy style of game. My preferred style of rpg has not been in print for a decade, and I don't think I'm the only one.

3. The barrier to entry for new gamers is atrocious. The cost is about $90 and it takes too much time to read the relevant core. Further, the person purchasing the game product needs to be somewhat educated about the game prior to purchase - they need to know to buy PHB, MM, DMG and dice in order to have the complete game. There needs to be a game where a parent who wants to get a game for her child can pick a box up off a shelf and have a complete game. That game needs to be easy enough for the kid to pick up quickly and complete enough for the kid to play for a long time without having to purchase more, but intriguing enough to make the kid WANT to purchase more. The Basic sets, as well as Star Frontiers and the Marvel Super Heroes Game, were very successful at this for a long time. Why the gaming industry completely abandoned this type of product ten years ago completely mystifies me.

R.A.

 

[Klaus]

AoO is easy to remove: Call of Cthulhu d20 did just that! Some things you *couldn't* do, while others had consequences akin to AoO.

- 5 levels only.
- Four Classes: Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric (these are for humans).
- No multiclassing.
- Four "racial" classes: Dwarf (Con-based fighter), Elf (bard-like wiz/ftr), Halfling (rogue-like) and Half-Orc (barbarian).
- No skill ranks. You choose skills and they're always "maxed out". Also, several skills are bundled together (Move Silently + Hide, as in Arcana Unearthed/Evolved)
- No iterative attacks (the 5-level-limit takes care of that)
- Spellcasting is straightforward (not possible to cast next to a foe, no worry about range, burst, spread or somesuch). Save DC is an opposed roll (newbie spellcaster players like to roll dice when casting spells). Spell levels 0-3, each with 10 spells only.
- 10 monsters of each CR. CRs go from 1/4 (dire rats) to 7 (big fire-breathing dragon).
- Ranged weapons: enemy is either "within range" or "beyond range". No range increments.
- Melee weapons: streamline them down to twenty or so.
- Feats: keep them down to 15 or so.


And so on...

 

[buzz]

Essentially, 3e completely misses out on the "Monopoly & Clue" croud.

As it should. It's not for them.

There hasn't been a legitimate attempt at a serious "rules-lite" FRPG is YEARS.

There was Everway. It didn't sell. Decipher's LOTR RPG is lighter than D&D, and they dropped it like a hot potato.

However, for RPG's, I prefer less complicated rules and a more free and easy style of game.

Have you looked at Eden's Unisystem? Donjon? FUDGE/FATE? Decipher's LOTR RPG?

The barrier to entry for new gamers is atrocious. The cost is about $90 and it takes too much time to read the relevant core.

New gamers have the $9.95 Basic Set that's been around since 2000. Or the new one. Or play with a friend who has the books.

There needs to be a game where a parent who wants to get a game for her child can pick a box up off a shelf and have a complete game.

There's the Basic Set. There's also the Star Wars and D&D mini games, which are basically tactical RPGs. And don't forget Clix stuff.

The Basic sets, as well as Star Frontiers and the Marvel Super Heroes Game, were very successful at this for a long time.

The question is whether they were profitable, I suppose. It's hard to tell when you're talking about TSR. I know I've heard many publishers say that producing boxed RPGs is simply not cost-effective. I'm not sure if recent attempts (Decipher's LOTR adventure games, the 3e Basic set) have seen much success.

I think that the general demographic has changed enough that these sorts of introductory, self-contained packages might not be as necessary. You're not necesarily marketing to 10-year-olds who don't even know what an RPG is or that there are dice with more than 6 sides. You're marketing to older teens and college students who've been raised on video games and Magic cards. Even the younger kids I've seen in stores are already comfortable with the RPG as a concept, and have probably already been playing clicky games.

I dunno. I stand firmly behind Clix and the WotC minis games serving the role the boxed games of the past did. They basically cover the core bits of RPGs, but they do it with a low entry cost and generally quick start-up time. D&D doesn't need to compete with this directly. It needs to be a place for these kids to go when they want to know what their evlen ranger does when he's not fighting people.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Hopefully C&C will sell like hotcakes. I eagerly await it's release so I can start a new campaign with it. While 1e is an excellent game, there are a few things about d20 that I like, and a lot I don't like, and C&C seems to have hit the sweet spot for me. IF the game is as good as it looks, but I've only seen some of it, I'll be done with D&D for good. It's been a long time since I played a fantasy game that wasn't D&D, BD&D, AD&D, 2e, or 3e. I don't think I'll miss it though.

 

[JeffB]

Is there a need for a simplified D&D?

When there are 2 paragraphs of rules explanations for half of the items on the equipment lists, and a seven part article on the WOTC website entitled "How to Read Spell descriptions", then the answer seems obvious to me.

D&D desperately needs a '81 Basic & Expert set, AFAIC. I had high hopes when I heard about the new Basic set, but..sigh..2 levels...

Princess Leia Voice

Help me Troll Lord Games, You're our only hope!

/Princess Leia Voice

 

[Mouseferatu]

Princess Leia Voice

Help me Troll Lord Games, You're our only hope!

/Princess Leia Voice

[Yoda voice]

No. There is another.

[/Yoda voice]

Yes, I'm mixing movies now. And yes, I'm quite possibly getting ahead of myself, since my own project doesn't have a publisher at the moment (though I've spoken to a few, as I said).

Don't get me wrong, I'm really looking forward to C&C. But it's not Basic D20, which is what some people want. Mine--or what I've designed of it so far--absolutely is.

(Check out Sigil's PDF, too. It has, among many others, the virtue of actually being finished and available. )

 

[buzz]

D&D desperately needs a '81 Basic & Expert set, AFAIC. I had high hopes when I heard about the new Basic set, but..sigh..2 levels...

I don't see how it makes sense for WotC to make two separate D&D lines that compete with each other. That was one of TSR's mistakes.

The whole point of the original Basic Set that came out in '77 was that it was an introduction to what was to come in AD&D. You got the basic rules, three levels of advancement, and then you bought a PHB. The 3.x Basic Sets serve the same purpose, as they should. The Basic/Expert thing didn't come along until '81, and that (a competing D&D line) had to do with legal wranglings between Gygax and Arneson, IIRC.

If you're not happy with the level of complexity in D&D, there are a host of other FRPGs (C&C included) that are much simpler. Sure, they're not called "D&D", but why should that matter?

 

[jmucchiello]

I never understand threads like this. What makes D&D D&D is the complexity. But let me point a few things out.

Everyone wants to simplify combat or character creation. Combat is only like 20-30 pages out of 300+ PHB pages. That's pretty simple already IMO. Skills could be streamlined. Reducing the number of classes and races will cut down the amount of pages for character creation. But the main devourer of pages in the PHB has been untouched by this "simplify" D&D thread and unless you do something there, you aren't simplifying anything. Spells take up nearly half of the PHB.

Not only are they volumous, but they have strange interactions. This spell is immune to Dispel Magic and this other spell can be affected by Break Enchantment. Spell X counters spell y. Daylight dispels all darkness effects up to 3rd level. Some spells are affected by spell resistance some aren't. etc.etc.etc.

Unless you create a simple and logical spell system, you will always have complexity. No one who has never seen an expert play a spellcaster is ever any good at playing a spellcaster. And even that is not enough. Sometimes I think playing a D&D spellcaster is almost a personality trait you (the player) either have or do not have.

Moving on, the monster manual is a collection of creatures that often break the rules: golems modify how spells affect them. Hydras are just weird. Similarly, the DMG has magic items that break the rules.

These things are the source of complexity in D&D. Attacks of Opportunity are nothing compared to the spells. They are also what makes it D&D.

Finally, for the umpteenth time, miniatures/grids are not new in 3e. The silly game is based on the miniatures rules for fantasy warfare called Chainmail. In 1e AD&D you did not need a battlemat because you were supposed to use a flat tabletop with lead miniatures representing the characters and monster. Movement and ranges were adjudicated using a RULER. Map grids are a much cleaner method.

P.S. Left-handed Hummingbird - you will like Castles and Crusades.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

AoO is easy to remove: Call of Cthulhu d20 did just that! Some things you *couldn't* do, while others had consequences akin to AoO.

- 5 levels only.
- Four Classes: Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric (these are for humans).
- No multiclassing.
- Four "racial" classes: Dwarf (Con-based fighter), Elf (bard-like wiz/ftr), Halfling (rogue-like) and Half-Orc (barbarian).
- No skill ranks. You choose skills and they're always "maxed out". Also, several skills are bundled together (Move Silently + Hide, as in Arcana Unearthed/Evolved)
- No iterative attacks (the 5-level-limit takes care of that)
- Spellcasting is straightforward (not possible to cast next to a foe, no worry about range, burst, spread or somesuch). Save DC is an opposed roll (newbie spellcaster players like to roll dice when casting spells). Spell levels 0-3, each with 10 spells only.
- 10 monsters of each CR. CRs go from 1/4 (dire rats) to 7 (big fire-breathing dragon).
- Ranged weapons: enemy is either "within range" or "beyond range". No range increments.
- Melee weapons: streamline them down to twenty or so.
- Feats: keep them down to 15 or so.


And so on...

I think this sounds like the best 'fix' at simplifying the rules.

And just to retort people saying there are so many pages of rules remember that proably 75% of the monsters in the monster manual will proably not be used and that only the DM need read or buy it. Remember that only the DM really needs to read or buy the DMG. Remember that a very large portion of the PHB is spells. You don't need to read every spell description in the game to play the game only the ones you plan to cast. Remember that alot of the PHB, the MM and the DMG is fluff and not rules.

BTW me and my group played nearly year before getting a grid map (actually we didn't even use a grid map we used graph paper) and we still used AoO.

 

[buzz]

I never understand threads like this. What makes D&D D&D is the complexity.

And it's what attracts the kind of people who tend to become long-term gamers. You target the "Monopoly and Clue" crowd, and you're targeting people who'll never buy more than one product, assuming they buy any. Then D&D go *poof*.

These things are the source of complexity in D&D. Attacks of Opportunity are nothing compared to the spells.

Big time.

What I'm really seeing here is older editions being viewed through rose-colored glasses, and people who really ought to consider simply trying some other systems. There are a lot of great ones out there that are way simpler than D&D.