J. Tweet's comments on Swords & Wizardry

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Old school is, in part, about making choices that matter. A "bad" choice of class IS (relatively) permanent... if it were not, the choice would not have mattered.

Intentionally bad class choices are only interesting the first time. Afterwards, you learned your thing and never pick the class again. Creating an entire class for that seems a waste of space and time.

Choices matter in all RPGs I have encountered. It is not an old school thing.

 

[Cadfan]

When all classes and races are perfectly mathematically balanced, and in combat a magic-user, fighter, cleric, sorceror, thief, etc. all have about the same effectiveness (at a given level or XP total), then the choice of class did not matter.

That's a very interesting theory.

If I choose between pizza and chinese, and I like both pizza and chinese, my choice did not matter.

But if I choose between pizza and gravel, and I like pizza but do not particularly like gravel, then my choice mattered.

Interesting theory.

 

[Mallus]

Creating an entire class for that seems a waste of space and time.

Right. From a game design perspective, it's nonsensical.

Choices matter in all RPGs I have encountered.

The choice should be how a character contributes (something mechanical) to the game, not if the character can contribute (something mechanical).

Sure, a PC, regardless of class, is always free to contribute an idea, a plan, a piece of clever role-playing. But this doesn't justify a rule system giving one class 10 effective mechanical abilities and another class 1 (or none).

Suggesting that ineffective class options reflect some deeper purpose, like 'teaching' players to never play them more than once, sounds like bad apologetics. A brilliant, nay revolutionary game can still have design flaws that become evident through years of hindsight.

 

[Doug McCrae]

If I choose between pizza and chinese, and I like both pizza and chinese, my choice did not matter.

If I choose between marrying Helen or marrying Fiona my choice didn't matter - they're both fine girls!

 

[Mallus]

II read peoples' blogs to get their opinions about stuff, so the "IMO" seems redundant to me.

Me too. I have no desire to read anything prefaced by a freight of qualifications, weasel words, and things like "I think, in my opinion, which might be daft, fairly sure of it in fact, absolutely not being objective here, etc..."

I just assume any discussion that's not about simple, agreed-upon maths is less than completely objective.

 

[Solomoriah]

I think you're missing the point here. In an adventure, the thief is supposed to sneak around, picking locks, disarming traps, scouting, etc. The fighter fights. The cleric can fight, or heal, or turn undead. The magic-user casts spells. Often, the magic-user character is the mapper.

When I quoted "bad" above, I meant a bad choice for the player. No class is a bad choice overall, but not all classes are good choices for all players. I have a player who just can't play a cleric, and another who always plays one. In any given in-game situation, some characters will have an advantage and others may not; may, in fact, be at a disadvantage. But in another situation, the roles will be rearranged.

This is a weakness of later editions, that treat the game as one big fight after another. Heck, we do a lot of mayhem in my game, but that's not all we do. When all you see are the fights, naturally you want all characters to have a "fair" chance in a fight; you don't look elsewhere. When more happens in the game than just fighting, and indeed all fights don't look alike mechanically, the choices make more of difference.

Honestly. In S&W (or BFRPG, being my own game), you can create a character in 20 minutes, tops. So you rolled one, and played a session or two, and you don't like it? Create another, and retire the first. Even if your DM is really tough and doesn't let you keep some fraction of your XP, starting from scratch after a session or two is no big deal.

I've never seen a player play a character to 3rd or higher level and then choose to dump it. Never. So honestly, you'll find out the character is a stinker well before you're much "behind" the other players.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think you're missing the point here. In an adventure, the thief is supposed to sneak around, picking locks, disarming traps, scouting, etc. The fighter fights. The cleric can fight, or heal, or turn undead. The magic-user casts spells. Often, the magic-user character is the mapper.

When I quoted "bad" above, I meant a bad choice for the player. No class is a bad choice overall, but not all classes are good choices for all players. I have a player who just can't play a cleric, and another who always plays one. In any given in-game situation, some characters will have an advantage and others may not; may, in fact, be at a disadvantage. But in another situation, the roles will be rearranged.

This is a weakness of later editions, that treat the game as one big fight after another. Heck, we do a lot of mayhem in my game, but that's not all we do. When all you see are the fights, naturally you want all characters to have a "fair" chance in a fight; you don't look elsewhere. When more happens in the game than just fighting, and indeed all fights don't look alike mechanically, the choices make more of difference.

Honestly. In S&W (or BFRPG, being my own game), you can create a character in 20 minutes, tops. So you rolled one, and played a session or two, and you don't like it? Create another, and retire the first. Even if your DM is really tough and doesn't let you keep some fraction of your XP, starting from scratch after a session or two is no big deal.

I've never seen a player play a character to 3rd or higher level and then choose to dump it. Never. So honestly, you'll find out the character is a stinker well before you're much "behind" the other players.

So you didn't mean what you wrote, but something different. Well, it happens to the best of us.

Players have different classes that "fit" to them better, that is certainly true. But that doesn't change anything regarding class balance. If a Wizard can out-rogue a rogue or out-fight a fighter, that is still a problem. It's not like the player is ill-suited to play a rogue, it is just that a rogue is just not the best of the job he is supposed to perform.

It is also problematic if a classes "shtick" can easily be ignored (be it because you never use the situations it come up, or because you don't use the rules to guide the success of the related activities.)

It is typically exemplary in combat. Fancy descriptions won't kill the dragon, making attacks that hit and deal damage is required.
It is handled differently with traps or social scenarios or wilderness travel and similar stuff. Sometimes it's just enough to use fancy descriptions in these scenario.
I think that would be okay if you allowed it equally for every type of scenario, but that doesn't happen in most D&D (or any RPG) games. And that naturally requires people to be mechanically good at the stuff that is resolved using mechanics, else their character cannot contribute in those scenarios, while those that have mechanically good characters can still contribute anywhere else.

 

[HywayWolf]

I know many of you may not understand why I enjoyed playing a 3 hp 1st level thief who never drew his sword in combat for the entire first level. But I did and he lived despite the heavy losses the rest of the party have taken so far. It helped that he had a high dex, but I wouldn't play a thief that wasn't better at range and jumping out of the way of trouble than the meat shields that grunt loudly as they kick open doors. (Doors that I flatly refused to attempt to pick the locks on Mama might have raised a criminal, but she didn't raise a stupid one) I was always the first up and over a ledge, or down a hole, or through a creepy crawley place. But put a big ugly beast in front of me, you can bet I was finding away to get behind the beefcakes and/or finding a safe place to range that had a nice exit point behind me.

I don't really care about what mechanics do what, I just want to go adventuring. And if I die, like has happened to me 3 times in the last two gaming nights in another game (where I am not playing a cowardly braggart of a thief), then I just role em up again and start over hoping that I can amass enough money, or goodwill with the church, to afford a resurrection if my soon to be 4th level thief meets his demise.

 

[HywayWolf]

So you didn't mean what you wrote, but something different. Well, it happens to the best of us.

snip.

I understood what he wrote. I even understood what he wrote when he corrected your misunderstanding of what he wrote. Even more, I understand that if you still misunderstand what he wrote then its because you are just being antagonistic and not really interested in rational discussion.

 

[ExploderWizard]

So you didn't mean what you wrote, but something different. Well, it happens to the best of us.

Players have different classes that "fit" to them better, that is certainly true. But that doesn't change anything regarding class balance. If a Wizard can out-rogue a rogue or out-fight a fighter, that is still a problem. It's not like the player is ill-suited to play a rogue, it is just that a rogue is just not the best of the job he is supposed to perform.

It is also problematic if a classes "shtick" can easily be ignored (be it because you never use the situations it come up, or because you don't use the rules to guide the success of the related activities.)

It is typically exemplary in combat. Fancy descriptions won't kill the dragon, making attacks that hit and deal damage is required.
It is handled differently with traps or social scenarios or wilderness travel and similar stuff. Sometimes it's just enough to use fancy descriptions in these scenario.
I think that would be okay if you allowed it equally for every type of scenario, but that doesn't happen in most D&D (or any RPG) games. And that naturally requires people to be mechanically good at the stuff that is resolved using mechanics, else their character cannot contribute in those scenarios, while those that have mechanically good characters can still contribute anywhere else.

Balance can be achieved by the gaming group assuming it is even desired. Balance dictated by a rulebook on a per round basis can be useful for some groups, but for many such forced balance clogs up the flow of the game and makes the classes play too similar to one another.

As far as meaningful choices about class, I don't recall magic users that would often out-thief the thief. Magical items that could simulate such activity certainly existed, but the old magic user wasn't buying wands of knock by the armload like the 3E wizard could. Spell slots were precious and loading up on enough thief skill magic for an adventure left the magic user sorely lacking in other areas. In a world without the Wands and Scrolls R Us stores the magic user did a lot less toe stepping.

Who says fancy descriptions won't kill the dragon? The PC's have a problem with a nasty red dragon. They could charge in and just fight it or they could come up with a plan. Sneak in and steal the mother's egg while she is out hunting. Infiltrate the lair of a group of fire giants and hide the egg. Let the giants kill the dragon when she comes for her egg. Profit.

Clever ideas can often save the day.