D&D 3.x [Let's Read] The Frank & K Tomes

[VHawkwinter]

1. Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition must be balanced against the standards of highly-optimized primary spellcasters making use of particular game-breaking exploits. Case in point, using Planar Binding and Candles of Invocation to entrap noble efreeti and djinnis into getting multiple castings of the Wish spell as early as 9th level, which is the lynchpin of what the Tome authors call the Wish Economy.
2. Favoritism of players in the social contract. The Gaming Den's ideal view of a Dungeon Master is akin to that of a physics engine in a video game: their primary role is to manage the objective mechanics in the game world, de-empasizing their nature as judge and arbiter of the rules. They encourage the removal of as many elements that can be left to DM Fiat as possible, for fear of such power being abused.
3. Avoidance of "Magical Tea Party," a term that refers to any element of an RPG that is improvised or doesn't make use of explicit rules in the system. While it ties into the above, the term is so frequently used on the Den as to be an independent section.
4. Rules as a physics engine, where the underlying mechanics of gameplay can persist independently of player and DM input. Events that occur during downtime and between adventures must abide by game mechanics and not be handwaved. This is done for the ultimate purpose of presenting a world that is greater than the people sitting at the table. In practical terms, players and DMs rolling dice in isolation outside of game night to generate outcomes are viewed as either a legitimate exploit of the rules, or nigh-mandatory in order to assure that the next adventure starts in a way that is believable to the group. For example, let's say that the town's silver dragon guardian is poisoned and can only be cured by an exotic herb. Well, the DM better roll the dragon a Fortitude save to see if the adventure the DM desires can even be run!

I first read the Tomes in 2009 when we picked up PF1. Although I didn't agree with everything they did, I still appreciate three of these points (and my favourite games I've played outside of 3.0+ are Shadowrun 4th edition (available in a big humble bundle right now FYI); GURPS 4e; and then to a lesser extent, Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplay (the 1999 version); Mongoose RuneQuest 2 / Legend / RuneQuest 6 / Mythras; and The Dark Eye (The English one)). "Rules as Physics; avoidance of 'Magical Tea Party' & Favouritism of the Players in the Social Contract" I absolutely think make for better gameplay.

As for their assumption of game breaking exploits and the assumption that the rules must be run hyperliterally even for bizarre reinterpretations, that went too far, but it was refreshing to see someone's proposed "fixes" of 3e not just making a 4e knockoff or a worse version of RuneQuest; With some sort of e6 or 'ban full casters entirely and play a totally different feeling game that no longer resembles the D&D novels you're playing D&D for its similarity to'.

I don't think I ever actually used any of their 'fixes', but they were an interesting read.

 

[VHawkwinter]

But what is most tragic is that the Gaming Den's metaphorical raising of the drawbridge is that they let much of the rest of the tabletop industry pass them by.

As someone who shared some of their criticisms and was partially receptive to some of the ideas they had on offer - the tabletop industry as a whole (aside from a couple niche German imports, a new minor revision of the RuneQuest from 2005 I already had (Mythras), and some GURPS stuff) has not really made products for those of us who like more simulationist leaning games in a very long time (Though Ed Greenwood's self published setting material on DM's Guild is lovely as someone who is not using the mechanics). The tabletop industry moved in a different direction away from games I like, such that I have found myself making my own game over the last ~2 years rather than liking the new offerings.

Many problems of D&D pointed out in the Tome series and the broader critical analysis sphere have since been solved and standardized: 4th and 5th Edition defanged alignment of its mechanical focus, making it easier than ever to treat it as a rarely-thought of background element.

This one, I agree, is good.

The Pathfinder designers, one of whom once claimed Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards was the fault of the players and not the system, have since realized these balance issues and made a 2nd Edition that rewards tactical gameplay and appeals to robust character creation options while giving each class a distinct role and place at the table.

I did not enjoy PF2 when I tried it. It felt like a mix of things I hated from 4e, and things I hated from 5e, and the lack of backward compatibility meant I couldn't reasonably 'fix' it by importing subsystems and classes I liked from games I thought had better gameplay. Yes, they accomplished closer class balance, but they did so in a way I found not fun at the table. That said, the last time I played either PF2 or 5e was early 2020 before lockdowns.

The increasing acceptance of X-cards

My experience of X Cards actually seeing use has been exclusively been by players abusing the mechanic to veto the central premise of a prepublished adventure, skip the combat, and finish the module in half the allotted time, ruining the one-shot for the other four people at the table. Plus, if you're someone whose "Lines" a la "Lines and Veils" includes "retcons" - even non-abused X-Card use is likely to ruin the session or campaign. And then that controversial youtube real-play scene I'm sure we're all aware of at least tangentially, where the X-Card was available and didn't see use, and people found the non-X-Carded content traumatic - though I don't know the people involved in that controversy, from reading about everything that happened, I really think they needed in-advance adult discussion of what kinds of polarising content was and was not appropriate for the campaign, Lines and Veils stuff, during session 0. Though I can appreciate what the X-Card designer hoped for, I genuinely do not think X-Cards are fit for purpose - just a new way for bad-actors to ruin things for everyone else.

lines and veils, and Session 0 have been indispensable in rooting out problem players and power-tripping DMs

These, on the other hand, I think are great. There is no social contract that can be assumed except what was explicitly discussed and agreed upon. So talk it out.

allowing gamers better tools than the Den's failed tactics of "how can we alter the rules to prevent the DM's abuse of authority?"

However, I do think setting up the rules in such a way as to prevent the GM's abuse of authority (such as a structured group vote on how to resolve mechanics which can be interpreted multiple ways, with the GM only voting to break ties; and the GM not being allowed to introduce houserules after people have made characters without a majority vote to adopt the houserule) - I have found useful for reducing arguments and having players tell me they consider my GMing very fair.

I think a bigger reason to make the rules more explicit isn't about a fear of abuse of authority though, it's about consistent game mechanics, and acknowledging that an on-the-spot ruling is very unlikely to be as consistent, fair, and balanced as something a game designer spent hours crunching the numbers or doing research for. Putting less on the shoulders of the GM means they don't have to do it all, you can delegate some portions of game arbitrage to the players, reducing the cognitive load on the GM, and you get a better, more consistent game as a result.

In a less negative space, they might take solace in the fact that D&D and the wider tabletop fandom has made steps towards a vision closer to theirs. But in their anger they could not see this, or at least didn't wish to acknowledge it.

And tying it back to my opening comment, given their preference for 'rules-as-physics', and their preference for higher powered play (certainly higher powered than I like, and I am very happy with open-ended 6th-9th level 3e spells being in a D&D type game - just not wish-economy exploits or similar), I would speculate that the "fixes" the industry has moved toward since 2010, would not be considered improvements to them - as the ones I've tried generally haven't been for me (Except maybe the mid-2010s German-Translated "The Dark Eye").

They thought that the world outside their walls and moat was a desolate land, when in reality the rest of the gaming world is lush and thriving.

Thriving, yes, but making games for a different demographic - good for other people, certainly, but if I am not having fun playing a lot of these new systems for more than a one-shot, I won't want to use them for campaigns I run, and won't really want to join one.

 

[VHawkwinter]

Vote for the ones you'd be most interested in hearing about

The one in the list I would be interested in a review of is Spycraft 2.0.

There's other stuff I'd love to see indepth reviews of, either to see what other people think of them, or to get a good review of something I never had a chance to try, but of the ones in your list, Spycraft 2.0.

This review series was a very interesting read which gave me much to think about this evening. So, thank you.

 

[VHawkwinter]

For instance, gorillas in real life cannot swim due to their physiology, but in 3.5 their high Strength scores and the low DC to swim even in rough water makes the opposite true. That doesn't mean that we need to turn all apes in a setting into robots,* but it does show the impracticality of Frank and K's design. If we really want to be consistent regarding bugs in D&D, we'll now have to think about and rework the entire animal kingdom and agriculture, especially given that farmers can't use poison anymore to deal with insect infestations!

That's very true. (Though in an ideal world, with digital games rather than paper, when something like this is pointed out, the devs could patch the animal statblock, or add an errata). Perhaps this suggests that the swimming rules could use an update to work properly for things other than humans.

One I know bugged me about 3e, is that an elephant falling off a cliff will much more likely to survive it than a mouse falling off of a cliff, and that is not how the square-cube law works. I houseruled that in my home games many years back now (fall famage is the same for medium creatures, but for each size below the damage is halved (down to 1) and then the increment is doubled from there; while for creatures above medium, the increment is halved to 5ft, and then the damage doubled per increment beyond that (and naturally flying creatures count as... IIRC 2 sizes smaller for fall damage).

 

[VHawkwinter]

Again though - minor nitpicking aside, I found your review thought provoking, and I never really got into the Gaming Den as a community, beyond reading the houserules and finding them interesting in 2009 or 2010. Thanks.