D&D 5E Legends & Lore 4/1/2013

[pemerton]

This unthinkable system you describe worked just fine from 1973 to 2008.

Mabye. But I've read a lot of posts in which people talk about fudging dice for new players, because no one wants their first experience of the dice being rolled to result in the death of their first PC.

Why not change the rules to get rid of the need to fudge to

I'm annoyed enough that this thread has been hijacked -- with a mod's support, no less -- just because someone had the audacity to make a factual observation about "your" edition.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, but I think my post criticising the equation of OSR/gritty levels with simple/newbie levels was made before KM joined the thread, or VinylTap, I think.

I was responding to and building on posts from Nemesis Destiny, Obryn and AbdulAlhazred, among others.

They are dumb as rocks and don't realize how much more dangerous than the XBox tabletop roleplaying can be!

I don't know anything about XBoxes, but I've personally never encountered much danger from tabletop RPGing, other than the standard risks of excessive fat consumption!

Fourth edition is a lemon popsicle, and anyone who likes it is an untied left shoe.

I take it that these are insults?

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

It's also more than enough to get killed! A first level PC has 8 to 15 hp. A lizardperson attacks twice per round for 4 or 6 damage on a hit; a spider once for 6 damage plus 9 poison damage on a failed save!

He said they encounter a wandering band of lizardfolk, he did not say they fight them. If you do attack the wandering band of lizardfolk as a low-level party then you learn the lesson of fighting when you should avoid doing so. Not a bad lesson for a new player to learn.

He didn't specify any particular type of spider. The stats you give I assume are for a giant spider. Such detail was not given in his quick example. They could just as easily be a nest of tiny little spiders that do 1 point of damage when they hit. Neither of us know. Yet the point is that you set them against appropriate challenges.

The D&D level system, especially in its contemporary form, connects PC complexity and PC survivability, especially at low levels and especially without the CON kicker or some other comprable bonus to starting hit points. I can see how this makes some sense if your design goal is to replicate a certain sort of D&D experience. But I can't see how it has any connection to introducing beginners.

Survivability has much more to do with the challenges the DM chooses to confront the players with than their actual character stats.

Beginners, at least in my (admittedly limited) experience want simple PCs, who are survivable, but who get involved in real action. Real action in D&D means real chances of damage; survivability therefore mandates some sort of hp or Fate Point-style buffer.

Mandates? No. Sorry, not buying that. Maybe you've heard horror stories of swaths of death in 1E AD&D, but that more likely came from more experienced groups upping the difficulty for a greater challenge. In my personal experience very few newbies died repeatedly at low levels. Also, getting involved in real action doesn't require combat! A murder-mystery scenario surrounding the lost elf in Mearls' example can be just as engaging and action-packed without resorting to combat and mandating hp or fate point buffers.

 

[DMZ2112]

Mabye. But I've read a lot of posts in which people talk about fudging dice for new players, because no one wants their first experience of the dice being rolled to result in the death of their first PC.

Why not change the rules to get rid of the need to fudge

Why have a DM at all? Why not just play a video game? Fudging behind the screen is the /soul/ of the game, at any level, and I believe with /great/ fervor that anyone who does not understand that is not playing /any/ edition of D&D.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, but I think my post criticising the equation of OSR/gritty levels with simple/newbie levels was made before KM joined the thread, or VinylTap, I think.

I'm not blaming you for the hijack, I'm just annoyed by it. And by your attitude. They are conspiring to raise my blood pressure.

I don't know anything about XBoxes, but I've personally never encountered much danger from tabletop RPGing, other than the standard risks of excessive fat consumption!

Well, if it's not dangerous, why does anyone need to be protected from it? Bring on that d4 hit die!

I take it that these are insults?

Are they? Feel free to take offense; it is no less than I expect.

 

[VinylTap]

I take it that these are insults?

I think he's trying to point out the absurdity in trying to outline the differences between the two systems, it all comes down to "buzz" words that, instead of clarifying points, ends up obscuring them on an emotional level because "how dare you dictate what my game is" (that wasn't an attack, so much an an exaggeration to make a point).

There's a way of talking about 4th that shuts down the conversation, even if that line of thought isn't meant to be disparaging or diminutive. Trying to separate the different ways the games handle game mechanics (especially on a macro level) can be really difficult, and that difficulty isn't helped by a lot of the 'edition politics' (we're all guilty of it on some level).

I'm fine with derailing threads if it gets people into interesting posts. At the point this thread got a little heated, i would argue it had already gone off topic, but that's just my perspective, and no one else.

The quality of posts has definitely gone up in the last 10 pages or so, and there hasn't been any 'chicken-little'-ing.

 

[Nagol]

Why have a DM at all? Why not just play a video game? Fudging behind the screen is the /soul/ of the game, at any level, and I believe with /great/ fervor that anyone who does not understand that is not playing /any/ edition of D&D.

Whereas my belief is anyone who fudges is subverting the soul of the game. And I've run a lot of versions of D&D.

 

[VinylTap]

Fudging openly and obviously in front of your players probably doesn't lead to the best psychology between player and DM, but there are ways of doing it while still keeping the impartial veil up. I coddled my players through 'Crypt of Everflame' and they still thought the place was just designed to kill them, maliciously. Its even easier to do with noobs because they have no idea what's going on.

There's also obviously a level of gradient to 4th's approach to character empowerment vs. DM empowerment. Suggesting you don't need a DM with that line of logic is ignoring the gradient and being overly polarizing about the issue. Its a give and take, one game just leans in one direction.

 

[DMZ2112]

Whereas my belief is anyone who fudges is subverting the soul of the game. And I've run a lot of versions of D&D.

And I can simultaneously respect your right to believe that while disagreeing with every humming fiber of my luminous being, and can allow civil discourse to continue on other topics without needing to scream my dissent down your throat.

Can we please get back to D&DNext now?

 

[Nagol]

And I can simultaneously respect your right to believe that while disagreeing with every humming fiber of my luminous being, and can allow civil discourse to continue on other topics without needing to scream my dissent down your throat.

Can we please get back to D&DNext now?

Kudos on your open-mindedness and restraint, but probably not. In my experience, once a derailment exceeds 2 pages, the thread is pretty much gone.

 

[DMZ2112]

Kudos on your open-mindedness and restraint, but probably not. In my experience, once a derailment exceeds 2 pages, the thread is pretty much gone.

::Vader no::

 

[Ratskinner]

Ged can bind the wings of dragonlings so they fall into the water. That's Hold Monster vs multiple targets. He can also change form into a dragon and thereby beat one up in combat - in 1st ed AD&D that's Shapechange (Polymorph self only gives movement abilities).

Ged is quite hard to do in any version of D&D, I think. And certainly hard to do if you're going to start him at 1st level!

The lack of correspondence between D&D's magic system(s) and....well any non-derivative fiction, really...is often a big hangup when trying to compare the game and fictional characters.