I've finally figured out why 3rd edition bugs me

[mhacdebhandia]

All actually detailed and worked out live, on Monte's fora:

http://p222.ezboard.com/fokayyourturnfrm32.showMessage?topicID=197.topic

 

[Staffan]

Class features, for example, are presented in discrete units. It's not perfect; the rogue still has a Second Edition-style list of the weapons they're proficient with rather than a listing of the defined proficiency groups that nearly all the other classes have.

Weapon lists are a bit more common than that, I think. Looking at the core classes:

Barbarian - Simple + Martial
Bard - Simple + list
Cleric - Simple
Druid - List
Fighter - Simple + Martial
Monk - List
Paladin - Simple + Martial
Ranger - Simple + Martial
Rogue - List
Sorcerer - Simple
Wizard - List

So out of 11 classes, 4½ have a list describing what weapons they're proficient in (I count the bard as ½).

 

[woodelf]

We have those. They are in the fantasy section of your local bookstore. They are also called "novels".

The problem with those is they don't interface with the rules, without a lot of effort on the part of the players. If i'm going to tailor a system for a specific setting, i want something a *lot* lighter than D20 System--Fudge, Risus, or Primetime Adventures, frex. Otherwise, the effort gets ridiculous. Or, you just use the rules as-is, and the setting as-is, and there's really no intearction between them, so you say one thing (for flavor setting) but then do another (whatever the rules say). Which, for me at least, is very unsatisfying.

Whereas, a flavor-heavy, yet also crunch-heavy, game supplement can do all that for me. It's the difference between "nobody knows whether the gods are real", but using D&D3E clerics, paladins, and rangers; and "nobody knows whether the gods are real" and using AU classes (i.e., no class abilities tied to divinity). Just to pick an example that happens to have both versions on the market. And the latter is probably a lot more useful to the average player than "go read A Wizard of Earthsea" for getting to the agnostic game.

 

[woodelf]

Well, keep in mind that I have a degree in Economics; I may just be more interested in it than most people.

But yeah, the core books were actually, extremely difficult for me to read. I think the MM was the only one I actually did read more or less cover to cover.

Well, IMHO, the eye-straining layout, and the horrid organization, certainly don't help. Toss in a healthy dose of poor writing, and you have the D&D3E core books. The combination of poor writing and poor organization meant that we didn't properly figure out the combat rules 'til the D20SRD showed up (now, since somebody at WotC is clearly capable of such organization and writing, why aren't the rulebooks as clear as the SRD?).

[And don't bother accusing me of just being dumb in this regard--i've figured out Hero System 4th combat, CORPS 2nd ed combat, and GURPS 3rd advanced combat, all from the books, and with no trouble. It's not me. Not to mention, it wasn't just me, it was the whole group (8 people), some of whom were experienced RPers, some of whom were newbies (and thus free of preconceptions).]

Funny on the MM--that's the only one i have yet to read more than a half-dozen pages from. Not only the jumbled layout and poor design, but the fact that they took away all the bits that i used to read in monster books. Used to be (particularly in Ars Magica and AD&D2), i'd read all the "important" stuff--the ecology/behavior/appearance bits--right away, and only even look at the stats once i was considering using it. Now, i can't even read a description of the creature in most cases--we're stuck with looking at the picture, which may or may not be accurate.

 

[woodelf]

Yeah, but that's just it; the D&D ruleset is not stripped down and setting neutral in the least. How many fantasy settings do you know that have anything like the cleric class in them? How many do you know that have all these spellcasting woodsmen? How many settings do you know in which there's this sharp divide between types of magic; arcane and divine? How many settings do you know that have spells at all like the D&D spell-list?

Chances are, all the settings you know that have those things are, guess what?, D&D settings.

Which is, in part, why i don't care for D&D3E. AD&D2 was making steps in the right direction--boiling the classes down to 4 archetypal roles, and using "kits" to customize for a specific setting. It just didn't do it all that well. But, IMHO, D&D3E was a huge step backwards by going back to having a lot of setting/assumptions built into the rules, rather than trying as hard as possible to strip those bits out. It's why, if i'm trying to mimic a particular fantasy setting, i'm unlikely to start with D&D3[.5]E, or the D20SRD.

And, it's in large part why i love AU so much--i find it seems to match more "standard" fantasy tropes than the most-recent D&D rulebooks do, and thus requires less effort to mimic a setting. And since i have always used D&D as a "generic" fantasy ruleset, regardless of how generic it wasn't, this is a good thing.

Actually, that's not true; Monte said in the Design Diaries that he was recognizing how much setting information was imbedded in the rules, and was specifically trying to imbed different setting information in the rules. He wasn't trying to imbed more setting information. In other words, AU is nothing more nor less than D&D, but not D&D. D&D without the D&Disms, if you will. Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, as an alternate PHB, is just as setting neutral as the actual PHB; it just so happens that there is only one setting available for it; the Diamond Throne.

And is a useful eye-opener for those who're totally enmeshed in D&D, i think. If you read AU and find all those setting assumptions embedded in the rules jarring, keep in mind that some of us find D&D3E just as setting-ful. Only if you come specifically from a "D&D" background (and that can include a lot of fantasy fiction, computer games, and even movies, that've been inspired by D&D, in whole or in part) do those setting elements disappear into the background.

It'd be interesting to see, although I doubt there's a market for it, if someone else were to take that ruleset and publish another setting for it. It could certainly be done as easily as we can have Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and whatever other settings for the PHB assumptions.

I'm "playing D&D" (IMHO), and my rules are basically Arcana Unearthed and The Book of Distinctions and Drawbacks. My setting is Zakhara/Al Qadim. You know the funniest part about it? It requires much less adjustment to the rules to make them fit a pseudo-Arabian setting in general, and Zakhara in particular, than it took to make AD&D2 fit (or would take to make D&D3E fit). The D&D-standard non-humans just don't fit the setting. The AU-standard non-humans fit easily. Several of the D&D-standard classes feel sort of shoe-horned into the setting, and required a dozen or so new "kits" (really whole new classes) to mesh with the setting (i'm ignoring the kits that are just some minor flavor alterations). Those same Arabia-specific roles are either already covered by AU classes, or trivially adjusted to (new flavors of witch are not only easier to come up with than whole new magic systems, but they match the setting better than those whole new classes did, anyway). And none of the AU classes feel out of place. Al Qadim downplayed alignment to the point of ignoring it; AU has no alignment. Al Qadim basically divorced magical ability from divine worship in the flavor text (though the classes kept the connection--a bit jarringly); AU doesn't have any divine-associated classes. Three new feats to cover the varying social roles of the 3 types of priesthood, and that's all that's needed to make it match (compared to the half-dozen essentially-new classes of AD&D2, which didn't really fit very well anyway). Oh, and Al Qadim originally added a Calling on Fate mechanic, while AU already has an appropriate match built in (hero points).

Of course, i can't publish it--vast swaths of the player handout i've put together for it are swiped wholesale from the Al Qadim books. But, really, a setting that assumes AU as the baseline ruleset rather than D&D3.5E makes perfect sense to me. And i might even buy such a beast (though i specifically bought AU as a "generic" ruleset for homebrews, just like i've always used D&D--i tend to play other games when i want a pre-existing setting, though i have no idea why).

 

[woodelf]

Same here. The (relative) simplicity of the rules makes for a fairly smoothly running game. In fact, I'd argue that the flavor that is included in the PHB and DMG goes a long way toward muddying the waters on what the rules really are. How many times have we seen arguments in the Rules forum where somebody says, "The rule says...but the flavor text seems to imply..."?

You mean like:
"Barbarian
...
Alignment: ...They may be honorable....
...
Alignment: Any nonlawful"

"Law and Chaos
...
'Law' implies honor,..."

So, which is it: can a barbarian be honorable, or not? Or, can an honorable person be non-lawful, or a lawful person be non-honorable?

That's just one example, off the top of my head, that i knew where to find in the book.

 

[Desdichado]

But, really, a setting that assumes AU as the baseline ruleset rather than D&D3.5E makes perfect sense to me. And i might even buy such a beast (though i specifically bought AU as a "generic" ruleset for homebrews, just like i've always used D&D--i tend to play other games when i want a pre-existing setting, though i have no idea why).

I'd buy it up too, if someone wrote one. I still enjoy playing D&D, but I make no bones about it; when I'm doing so, I'm playing D&D and not making any attempt to fit any other type of setting into the ruleset. When I want to do that, I use either a custom d20 patchwork, or something like Grim Tales that truly is more setting neutral.

Actually, the game I'm running now, I might well have used Grim Tales for if it had been released on time. I'm only using three D&D classes (fighter, rogue, barbarian) and one D&D race (human) while I've added in half a dozen other classes from various d20 sources, new races, and Call of Cthulhu style magic, which is independent of class. And which requires Sanity, for that matter.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

woah! No need to put words into my mouth--if i want to disparage 3E, for whatever reason, i'll come right out and say it. I'm not shy about ripping on 3E--i've got a list of problems with it that's almost as long as teh rulebooks. However, in this thread, I said nothing of the sort.

I was simply observing that i've seen art that looked a lot like the D&D3E art when a roommate was playing Final Fantasy, or some other computer game. Prior to D&D3E, i'd never seen that style of art in a pre-industrial-setting RPG, novel, or other non-computer-game fantasy work. And it's certainly not the style of pre-3E D&D art. That's all i'm saying.

I apologized later on in the thread.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Whereas, a flavor-heavy, yet also crunch-heavy, game supplement can do all that for me. It's the difference between "nobody knows whether the gods are real", but using D&D3E clerics, paladins, and rangers; and "nobody knows whether the gods are real" and using AU classes (i.e., no class abilities tied to divinity). Just to pick an example that happens to have both versions on the market. And the latter is probably a lot more useful to the average player than "go read A Wizard of Earthsea" for getting to the agnostic game.

I don't get it.
In Eberron, no one knows if the gods are real, but it still has clerics and paladins (divine magic is based on faith).

What's your point?

Geoff.

 

[Turjan]

Actually, that's not true; Monte said in the Design Diaries that he was recognizing how much setting information was imbedded in the rules, and was specifically trying to imbed different setting information in the rules. He wasn't trying to imbed more setting information. In other words, AU is nothing more nor less than D&D, but not D&D. D&D without the D&Disms, if you will. Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, as an alternate PHB, is just as setting neutral as the actual PHB; it just so happens that there is only one setting available for it; the Diamond Throne.

Principally, you are right with this assumption. That part of AU that carries the most setting specific information are the races, IMHO. There's lots of flavour connected to them, and this particular mix of races generates the distinct "Diamond Throne" atmosphere. That said, I always felt that swapping the races for others is the simplest part of customisation. The fact that alignment and clerics are already excised from the AU system saves a lot of work, because these concepts are much more tightly anchored in original D&D than the races; the magic system comes to mind. The "rogue problem" as intrinsic D&Dism has only been scratched by AU, though.