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<blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 6262084" data-attributes="member: 5143"><p>My guess is that in core 2e there was very little actual game to play. I mean "I'm a fighter, I have a longsword that does 1d8 damage" was an adequate way to summarize a 1st level human fighter. Every other fighter has pretty much the same options, which is to say very few. There were very few ways to optimize your characters so there was no need to concentrate on that. Why worry about options you don't actually have? Instead concentrate on the things you can actually control like whether or not your character would run into that burning building to save the children or not.</p><p></p><p>But in 3e and later there became 2 games being played at once: There was the optimization game where you tried to find the most effective way to defeat enemies, tried to make your character the best at what you wanted him/her to do mechanically. Then there was the actual game of D&D where you decided what your character would do during the game. Most of my friends like the optimization game more than the actual game. I had one friend who would show up with a new character nearly every session because he loved optimization so much that he wanted to do the entire process again every week. The actual game session was just a chance to prove how well his optimization worked.</p><p></p><p>I think in addition to the options being available it was also a matter of how much time was spent in the game where the options were useful. Our battles were taking about an hour a piece in 3e as opposed to the 15-20 minutes they were taking in 2e. There was a lot more time to concentrate on the effect your optimization was providing you. You could sit there for an hour thinking in the back of your head "We're winning because of the AWESOME character I made. Look how much damage he does in comparison to everyone else!" when battles only took 15 minutes and weren't made out to be such a big deal, it didn't matter if you did 30 damage instead of 10 damage. The monster only had 10 hitpoints and your overkill was kind of useless. In 3e, monsters had 100 hitpoints so the person who did 30 damage in a round vs 10 was killing the monster 3 times faster.</p><p></p><p>As for other systems, yes we've played a couple. My group was just as bad when we played Champions. They attempted to power game and there was a lot of game mechanics talk. However, it didn't get too bad since that system was so complicated that none of them understood it well enough to power game effectively. We decided to switch away from it after people got bored at how long battles took, but I can imagine after a while everyone learning the system well enough to turn into the same thing.</p><p></p><p>There was almost no mechanics talk at all when we played Numenera since the system is so light. However, I think we all decided after a short while that it was a little too light for our taste, we like mechanics and options but there just can't be too many. D&D Next hits about the sweet zone for me. Though, as I mentioned in the previous post, one of my players would really prefer we go back to 4e where he could power game way more.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't think my players have ever been REALLY interested in stories. Though the composition of my group has changed quite a bit and each player is different. However, the group that was playing my 17th level 3.5e game was perfectly happy having interesting things to fight. The setting and reason they were killing them didn't matter much. It was just an excuse to test their cool builds.</p><p></p><p>About the time that one of my players was playing a Half-Shadow(or whatever the template is called) Rogue/Warlock/Arcane Trickster build who had permanent Fire Whip spells cast on both hands so he could materialize 2 4d6 fire damage reach weapons that only had to hit touch AC to hit while having the entire Two-Weapon Fighting tree and could make 6 attacks with sneak attack each round while adding his Warlock Eldrich Blast on all his attacks nearly guaranteeing somewhere around 50d6 points of damage per round to any enemy and could teleport from shadow to shadow at will while hiding in plain sight I wanted to shoot myself.</p><p></p><p>But they were perfectly happy fighting monster after monster and totally annihilating them over and over again. That's really what they wanted to do.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think the thing is that we're hardcore gamers. We play board games and video games pretty much constantly. To us, D&D is simply another game we play...though the only game we play consistently. Like any other game we play, you examine the rules and you play the way the game wants you to play.</p><p></p><p>My one powergamer friend who is in my group, for instance, played Skyrim and get super annoyed at how easy the game was because he had found a "bug" in the game where it was really cheap to increase your blacksmithing skill to max by making daggers continuously. The game doesn't stop you from doing that and you can make one of the best weapons in the game at close to first level. Enchanting is likewise super easy if you know the right tricks allowing you to enchant that weapon you made with enchantments that require skill above 100(the maximum) by first enchanting items to give you bonuses to enchanting skill.</p><p></p><p>So he was wondering around the game at level 3 or something with a weapon about twice as powerful as the most powerful item that occurs in the game without crafting. He killed everything in one hit. However, he blamed the game for allowing him to do that in the first place.</p><p></p><p>I asked why he just didn't play the game without training blacksmithing to see if it was more fun and he looked at me incredulously as if the idea that you would purposefully NOT take your absolute best option was unthinkably stupid.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Majoru Oakheart, post: 6262084, member: 5143"] My guess is that in core 2e there was very little actual game to play. I mean "I'm a fighter, I have a longsword that does 1d8 damage" was an adequate way to summarize a 1st level human fighter. Every other fighter has pretty much the same options, which is to say very few. There were very few ways to optimize your characters so there was no need to concentrate on that. Why worry about options you don't actually have? Instead concentrate on the things you can actually control like whether or not your character would run into that burning building to save the children or not. But in 3e and later there became 2 games being played at once: There was the optimization game where you tried to find the most effective way to defeat enemies, tried to make your character the best at what you wanted him/her to do mechanically. Then there was the actual game of D&D where you decided what your character would do during the game. Most of my friends like the optimization game more than the actual game. I had one friend who would show up with a new character nearly every session because he loved optimization so much that he wanted to do the entire process again every week. The actual game session was just a chance to prove how well his optimization worked. I think in addition to the options being available it was also a matter of how much time was spent in the game where the options were useful. Our battles were taking about an hour a piece in 3e as opposed to the 15-20 minutes they were taking in 2e. There was a lot more time to concentrate on the effect your optimization was providing you. You could sit there for an hour thinking in the back of your head "We're winning because of the AWESOME character I made. Look how much damage he does in comparison to everyone else!" when battles only took 15 minutes and weren't made out to be such a big deal, it didn't matter if you did 30 damage instead of 10 damage. The monster only had 10 hitpoints and your overkill was kind of useless. In 3e, monsters had 100 hitpoints so the person who did 30 damage in a round vs 10 was killing the monster 3 times faster. As for other systems, yes we've played a couple. My group was just as bad when we played Champions. They attempted to power game and there was a lot of game mechanics talk. However, it didn't get too bad since that system was so complicated that none of them understood it well enough to power game effectively. We decided to switch away from it after people got bored at how long battles took, but I can imagine after a while everyone learning the system well enough to turn into the same thing. There was almost no mechanics talk at all when we played Numenera since the system is so light. However, I think we all decided after a short while that it was a little too light for our taste, we like mechanics and options but there just can't be too many. D&D Next hits about the sweet zone for me. Though, as I mentioned in the previous post, one of my players would really prefer we go back to 4e where he could power game way more. I don't think my players have ever been REALLY interested in stories. Though the composition of my group has changed quite a bit and each player is different. However, the group that was playing my 17th level 3.5e game was perfectly happy having interesting things to fight. The setting and reason they were killing them didn't matter much. It was just an excuse to test their cool builds. About the time that one of my players was playing a Half-Shadow(or whatever the template is called) Rogue/Warlock/Arcane Trickster build who had permanent Fire Whip spells cast on both hands so he could materialize 2 4d6 fire damage reach weapons that only had to hit touch AC to hit while having the entire Two-Weapon Fighting tree and could make 6 attacks with sneak attack each round while adding his Warlock Eldrich Blast on all his attacks nearly guaranteeing somewhere around 50d6 points of damage per round to any enemy and could teleport from shadow to shadow at will while hiding in plain sight I wanted to shoot myself. But they were perfectly happy fighting monster after monster and totally annihilating them over and over again. That's really what they wanted to do. I think the thing is that we're hardcore gamers. We play board games and video games pretty much constantly. To us, D&D is simply another game we play...though the only game we play consistently. Like any other game we play, you examine the rules and you play the way the game wants you to play. My one powergamer friend who is in my group, for instance, played Skyrim and get super annoyed at how easy the game was because he had found a "bug" in the game where it was really cheap to increase your blacksmithing skill to max by making daggers continuously. The game doesn't stop you from doing that and you can make one of the best weapons in the game at close to first level. Enchanting is likewise super easy if you know the right tricks allowing you to enchant that weapon you made with enchantments that require skill above 100(the maximum) by first enchanting items to give you bonuses to enchanting skill. So he was wondering around the game at level 3 or something with a weapon about twice as powerful as the most powerful item that occurs in the game without crafting. He killed everything in one hit. However, he blamed the game for allowing him to do that in the first place. I asked why he just didn't play the game without training blacksmithing to see if it was more fun and he looked at me incredulously as if the idea that you would purposefully NOT take your absolute best option was unthinkably stupid. [/QUOTE]
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