Messing with the basic assumptions of the system

[Clavis]

2. Divorcing XP from in-game events:
I abhor the XP calculation charts and I don’t like the idea of roleplaying XP because I find that akin to grading players based on whether their playing style matches my own or not. So I don’t award XP based on any formula, and actually don’t award XP based on anything in-game. Instead, I just award a certain amount of XP per session to keep PCs advancing at a speed I’m comfortable with. All PCs get the same amount of XP and they get the XP even if the player isn’t present (in which case I run the PC). The way I figure it, the major enjoyment in the game is, well, actually taking part in the game, and if the player is already missing out on that, I’m not going to penalize him further by awarding less XP too. I would actually have dropped XP altogether, but have PCs who use item creation feats and spells that drain XP, so I prefer to retain an XP score for each PC but just not award it the standard way. I just started running a monthly game where neither of those will happen, and in that game I have dropped XP altogether.
Results: The best result of this rule is that it frees players up to do what they think their characters should and what they’d have the most fun doing, and not have to worry about whether they’ll make more or less XP due to their choices. If they want to fight an army or want to spend a day schmoozing at a party, they know they’ll get the same amount of XP, so their choices are purely made on an in-game perspective and not with the metagame concern of XP. It also frees me up from having to calculate XP using some arbitrary formula or worrying if they’re leveling too fast or slow. I also avoid all the questions I see on the Rules forums here about what would be the appropriate XP award in some in-game situation.

This is precisely how I treat XP in my current campaign, and I have had zero complaints. It's especially good for our group, because we often run games where one or two of the PCs are off doing something alone, while the other players take the roles of NPCs or monsters. I doubt the players would be willing to do that if it meant that their PCs were effectively getting penalized for it. With a flat XP award per session, however, the players feel free to roleplay and experiment. They don't have to worry about how many monsters and traps they have to defeat to gain levels, nor do they feel like they have to jump through the DM's plot hoops to gain arbitrary "story awards".

 

[MarauderX]

I run a game that disagrees with some of the items listed. I find that management of a game is sorta like project management, and as such I apply some of the things I've learned through an MBA program:

1. Taking death out of the equation:

Death should have consequences. Loosing PCs is also a pain to me, but players must know that I'm not pulling any punches, anytime, ever. I use Luck Points (for a reroll of any roll, by anyone at the table) to keep newly created PCs alive.

2. Divorcing XP from in-game events:

I agree with this for the most part; however the group has to know when they are moving the plots & subplots along by getting additional XP. I tend to plan out for the long term with certain encounters at certain PC levels... if they advance ahead, they face the consequences, mostly getting used by a BBEG to forward his plot. Ultimately the PCs should be rewarded for thinking creatively, not just killing 1 more kobold for the extra 5 XP. Not doing so may give some players the feeling that no matter what they do or discover it makes no impact as reward, only that of furthering the storyline that they may not be prepared for.

3. Lowering buff/magic item dependency and removing the Big Six:

I run a lower magic campaign, where magic-using people are 1 in 10,000 (both arcane and divine, from level 1-20). So having magic items is rare, and they need to take the time out to create most of them if they want to have them, especially specific boosting. I dislike each character having a golf bag of goodies to choose from. Mearls is targeting less magic item dependence just like his Iron Heroes - which should be a good thing.

4. Ignoring the “multiple fight per day” paradigm: & 5. Removing/reducing attrition-based challenges:

This is one sure-fire way to give the party an expected easy way to survive. Having multiple fights per day stretches the PC's limits, and though it may push them to zerg through dungeons, there should be many, many means to have them slow down, stop or reverese. I hand-wave party resting in most scenarios when they do it in a secure area, but when they don't they just might provoke retribution from earlier foes that survived. Now this doesn't mean there need to be more fights, but perhaps your style is to have a better planned area that involves a prolonged fight or a situation that involves a moving battlefield involving all foes instead of only those in that 30x30 area G.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Having multiple fights per day stretches the PC's limits, and though it may push them to zerg through dungeons, there should be many, many means to have them slow down, stop or reverese.

MarauderX has been a master at keeping the pressure on (starting with a seemingly endless goblin siege at level 1) and it's been by far the best D&D game I've ever played. Real risk of death, no guarantee of "4 CR-appropriate encounters and then you get a nap."

Attrition is fun, and I say this as the player of the campaign's primary spellcaster. I really enjoy the resource management challenge, and I appreciate that our party doesn't do the cheesy 15-minute adventuring day.

 

[shilsen]

I run a game that disagrees with some of the items listed.

Well, I wasn't really suggesting my methods are the only way to play. And if you run closer to the base assumptions of the system, you're certain to run things differently from me.

Death should have consequences.

Death does have consequences in my game. It's just that PCs almost never die, so they don't get to that consequence

I agree with this for the most part; however the group has to know when they are moving the plots & subplots along by getting additional XP.

When you say the group "has to know", I presume you're referring to your group only and not making a blanket system for all groups. My group clearly does not have to, since I'm using a different system than yours, and doing so successfully over 2 years (over 4 years if you include the other campaign I've used it in).

This is one sure-fire way to give the party an expected easy way to survive.

For some DMs and groups, I'm sure, but for me that's absolutely not the case. Despite ignoring the “multiple fight per day” paradigm and removing/reducing attrition-based challenges, I have absolutely no problem challenging the PCs constantly, even with enemies who are supposedly a lot weaker than them. During our game on Sunday the players came up with the theory that "put together by Shil" is a template that adds +6 to the CR of any creature

That said, as Brother Maclaren's vote of confidence indicates, you're clearly running a damn good game. And so am I, even though we're doing very different things. Which just goes to show one of the points I was making in my first post, namely that D&D is a much more adaptive system than many people give it credit.

 

[Reynard]

For some DMs and groups, I'm sure, but for me that's absolutely not the case. Despite ignoring the “multiple fight per day” paradigm and removing/reducing attrition-based challenges, I have absolutely no problem challenging the PCs constantly, even with enemies who are supposedly a lot weaker than them. During our game on Sunday the players came up with the theory that "put together by Shil" is a template that adds +6 to the CR of any creature

Only tangentially related based on the idea of challenging characters even if they are at full strength all the time:

I once ran a 13th level Eberron game where the players were constantly super-prepping for fights, doing the whole scry-buff-teleport schtick and arranging it so that they were *always* at full strength for contact with major enemies. they consistently wiped the floor with my adversaries. Well, with me, to be precise. And while I am fine with PCs being awesome most of the time, it really began to wear on me.

So, i changed things up. They had been doing enough dmaage to various evil NPCs and organizations in the setting (they were evil themselves -- god, I will never make that kistake again) that they attracted the attention of Vol. They'd heard of her, and she was next on the party's "hit list" so she made some pre-emptive strikes against them, using their own tactics (SBT) against them.

Never had a session gone worse (except that time with the "highlanders" but that's neither here nor there). The players -- not their characters -- were incensed that they had been attacked and forced to flee. One character threw himself from a window to avoid being turned into a wraith; another character got killed and turned. Literally, the campaign did not survive that session.

What's my point? Not that fully prepped characters are bad. Not that using high-level PC style tactics by the bad guys is bad. What I learned from that situation is that switching gears that quickly can completely destroy a game. they went from Heroes to 9in their minds) zeroes in the spae of four hours and it kileld the campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

Messings With the System

Before diving in here, a quick reply to Jack7's excellent post: I by-and-large like just about everything you've done except the removal of dice rolling. It ain't D+D to me if there's no dice involved, and it's not a good game until I've used every dice in the bag.

Go ahead. One of the many things I've learned at ENWorld is that I can learn a lot from people playing different systems to me, whose tastes often (as I think yours do) diverge from mine, etc.

Disclaimer: not all of what follows are entirely my own invention; some I had nothing to do with at all, but they represent in sum the system I and others play and run that we've recently come to call "Victoria Rules". It's taken some 25+ years to get this far...oh, and long post warning!

OK. We start with 1e RAW, pre-anything except the core 3 books.

Very early changes:
- weapon speed taken out; too much work for too little result. Result: faster combat
- weapon vs. armour type taken out; ditto
- ExP-for-treasure abandoned; advancement was too fast for those who survived, and there quickly became too big a gap between the survivors and the 1st-level replacements. Somewhat replaced with "dungeon bonus" (story award), a much smaller number given out at the end of each adventure. Result: slower advancement (intentional) (side note here: the advancement tables have been the subject of constant tweaking ever since, particularly at the high end, to speed 'em up a bit; but we're still *way* slower than true 1e, or 3e or 4e)
- initiative system simplified to a straight d6, re-rolled for all combatants each round to better reflect the fluidity and randomness of real combat. Result: slower combats than turn-based but more realistic, and does away with the idea of planning one's "move" based on when one's "turn" is, because you never know.
- death point set to -10; chance to go unconscious if at 0 or below. Result: fewer deaths (though there were/are still lots), and more spread between fully functional (+1 h.p.) and dead (-1 h.p.) than original 1e.
- shields made to give 2 points of AC to differentiate from bucklers that gave 1. Result: little functional change other than to make shields more useful.
- class-level limits relaxed somewhat; this would start a still-ongoing process that today has most races able to fully function as most classes. Result: more variety of characters.
- Elven bonuses reduced considerably. Result: no real change; there's still lots of Elves played.

Next wave of changes:
- roll-up method becomes 5d6 dropping the lowest two 6 times, rearrange to suit. Intent is to reflect that characters are a cut above the average commoner. Result: as intended.
- critical hits (double damage on 5-6/d6 after nat. 20) and fumbles (1/d6 after nat. 1) introduced; fumbles give results from DM's chart). Tweaked several times since but the general idea remains intact. Result: more chaotic combats (intentional)
- Druids become Nature Clerics, and worship deities etc. just like regular Clerics; they can also now be any alignment. Result: the class actually got played.
- A new class - War Cleric - introduced as a sub-class of Cleric. Their combat spells are enhanced (and the somatic component is often to charge into melee combat) but their curing is drastically worse. Result: a wonderfully playable class at low levels that becomes a glass cannon higher up.
- all races allowed to multiclass, to some extent; and 1e's Human 2-classing dropped. Later, multiclass characters allowed to divide ExP more freely between classes, with limits. Result: more multiclass characters for a while but not ridiculous, and now it has settled down to about the same average it was before.
- a second type of hit points, called "body points", introduced...just like SW's wound points except 25 years earlier. Body points are constant; most adventurers have between 2 and 5 of them, in addition to "fatigue points" which are the normal hit points rolled by class and level. Body point damage is more difficult to cure and-or rest up from. At the same time, anyone who had been below 0 h.p. and recovered was deemed to be "incurable" for a length of time determined by how far negative they'd gone; incurability needed rest to remove. Result: much more realistic health issues, along with parties having to make some hard choices now and then "do we wait for Joe to rest another day to become curable, or do we press on and hope nothing hits him?"

Next wave of changes:
- Vancian spellcasting quasi-replaced with a spell point system; a caster rolls spell points each level just like hit points, except the size of dice rolled scales upward roughly commensurate with the points cost of each spell, and the average works out to close to what you'd be able to cast with slots. Clerics become fully "wild card" - all pre-memorization disappears for them. Wizards are messier: they still have to memorize their highest two levels of spells - as many as they like provided they've the points to spare - but are wild card on lower level spells and need only assign a wild card points block...e.g. a 7th-level MU has to memorize 3rd and 4th-level spells but is wild card on 1st and 2nd level spells. The logic here is that by the time you're casting 4th level spells you're so familiar with the lower-level stuff you can cast it on a relative whim. Result: Clerics became much easier to play, and thus more popular. Points system worked well up to about 7th level, after which it started to break; collapsing at around 10th. About to be changed again - see (way) below.
- Half-Orcs and Half-Elves become Part-Orcs and Part-Elves, being 1/8 to 7/8 Human. Result: longer tables for everything but more realism in genetics.

Unearthed Arcana comes out (1985)
- Barbarian immediately abandoned as a class but introduced as a magic-despising sub-race of Human. Result: variably successful as something for the player who wants a challenge. (our games tend toward the high-magic end; a character refusing magic is something of a fish out of water...)
- Cavalier-like %-ile stat increments introduced for all classes. Result: many years later, when 3e introduced the idea of a free stat point every 4 levels, we figured we'd done the right thing.
- Cavaliers get d10 hit dice instead of d12, and alignment restrictions eased. Result: well, at least a *few* got played...
- magic item instability introduced. Rationale: if some magic items explode when broken (c.f. retributive strike), why not all? Wild magic surges introduced later as another way of explaining what happens when magic energy gets released in ways it shouldn't be. Result: rare but spectacular cascading meltdowns as high-magic parties become low-magic parties on the (very messy) spot, and a new awareness of the risks involved in carrying lots of magic.
- combat rounds become 30 seconds instead of a minute. Result: no functional change.
- Bards redesigned as a "core" class. Result: several redesigns later I'm still not 100% satisfied...I can't find the sweet spot between useless and completely broken.
- Rangers alignment restriction disappears. Rationale: why does someone with survival and tracking skills necessarily have to be Good? Result: more freedom for me as DM to design opponents; more freedom for players to play combinations like Ranger-Thief or Ranger-Assassin.

more recent changes (some based on 3e):
- Monks redesigned from the ground up as a completely feat-based class. Result: they're way more playable at low levels without being broken, and more are being played.
- monsters gain strength bonuses to hit and damage where applicable, also gain some hit points. Result: the game scales into slightly higher levels somewhat better.
- Necromancer introduced as a sub-class of Magic-User (on par with Illusionist). Result: jury is still out, though so far so good.
- One Restoration spell gets you back at least into the level you started from (in cases of multiple level loss); it also gets you back some of what you've earned since. Rationale: wihtout this, a drained character is wasting their time adventuring as any earned ExP will be wiped out by the Restoration. Result: as intended.

upcoming changes, yet to be fully playtested:
- all spellcasters lose spell points and go back to a slot-based system, functioning much like 3e Sorcerers. Pre-memorization is gone. Most slots are automatic by level but a small random element remains, giving extra assignable slots now and then. Results (hoped-for): some lesser-used spells will see the light of day.
- psyonics, after 3 or 4 complete redesigns have failed, will be scrapped completely except as abilities inherent to a few iconic monsters e.g. mind flayers, major demons, etc. Results: less headaches for me as DM.

There's lots and lots of minor changes as well, mostly to do with spells and some flavour stuff; but those are the major ones.

Lane-"if you're still reading this you have my congratulations"-fan

 

[DrunkonDuty]

The whole scry-buff-teleport thing is the reason I ban teleport magic in my games. If it's there why shouldn't people who can make use of it use it? PC and NPC both popping in and out, attacking randomly at odd times. This gives the game a very specific style; one that wears on me rather quickly. Another reason I ban teleport magic is I think the journey is most of the fun.

I ban resurection magic of all kinds too. If someone (PC or NPC) ever comes back it's going to be because fate (or the gods or whatever) is taking a direct hand in events. Very big mojo. But then I rarely kill characters. If they do something so incredibly stupid that it gets them killed, well OK. Fine. I'll drop some hints if they're about to committ stupidicide but only so far, they're free to run their characters as they want. But if it's just bad luck on the dice I'll fudge or give them the caance to cut and run. Voadam: I love your idea about save vs. dying, consider that yoinked!! It'll be nice to have save or die back. (haven't used it much since the olden days.)

Like a few other folks here I use a pretty free and easy XP system. ie: PCs go up levels when I think it's appropriate. To get around the need for burning XP for items and certain spells I let them access leylines for a limited amount of XP. Hell, the more I play the more I ignore XP entirely. Of course its perfectly easy to use XP and still only level at story appropriate places by ruling (as in 1st Ed.) that a character must stop and rest and train for a period of time before going up levels. It's rare that a character can do that mid-adventure.

I like buff spells in general. Yes they get over used. Players DO come to rely on them and thus it can be fun to catch them without. Ambushes, anti-magic or dispels or just plain run 'em ragged with lots of encounters. But it's important that this doesn't ALWAYS happen. Players need to feel the benefits of their actions. Not to mention there are times it's good for the heroes to feel like the big bad asses they are and buffs help here. Plus it can give that feeling of pushing hard, taking out all the stops to take on that really tough bad guy.

A specific number of CR appropriate encounters per day is just so lame I've ignored it since the concept was first put to me. You get the encounters you get according to what's going on. If the players do something that gets them chased by a horde of orcs then that's what happens, even if that would be the fifth encounter of the day and the wrong CR. If they're taking it easy in an inn in a big city then the encounters they're getting are social ones. Generally I'd rarely give them more than one encounter a day. A couple of sessions ago I did give them a couple of run-on encounters, a very tough hydra followed a bit later by the three green hags who kept it as a pet. 2 very good fights, plenty of edge of the seat stuff for all involved and it surprised my players a bit who were quite used to a diet of one baddie a day (or less).

Where I diverge furthest from the RAW is skills. I give all characters +4 skill points per level. I run very high skill games. But at the same time players who max out all those dungeoneering nonsense skills will feel a bit useless in my games. Everyone should have some local knowledge (I treat this as a class skill for every class and it's broken up by locality). KS: Religion is just one of those things everyone should know too. KS: History doesn't hurt either given PCs spend most of their active lives investigating ancient ruins. A professional skill or two is usually a good idea. Social skills are a must. I give the players plenty of chances to use these skills and get both roleplaying and meta game advantages out of doing so. Plus of course my players just like having more rounded characters. Max ranks are still limited as per normal.

Um, just for my own edification: what are the <deep voice> BIG 6?

cheers all, Glen

 

[shilsen]

Only tangentially related...

Tangents? On a message board? You have got to be kidding me!

What's my point? Not that fully prepped characters are bad. Not that using high-level PC style tactics by the bad guys is bad. What I learned from that situation is that switching gears that quickly can completely destroy a game. they went from Heroes to 9in their minds) zeroes in the spae of four hours and it kileld the campaign.

Good point. And while that won't apply with all groups, of course, I do agree that a really abrupt and unexpected switch can throw off some players pretty badly. It hasn't been an issue in my game simply because the PCs and players are used to being tested to the limit on a regular basis. It happened when they were 4th lvl. It happened last session when they were 14th. And it'll keep happening as long as I run the game.

Lane-"if you're still reading this you have my congratulations"-fan

[Pheidippides]We are victorious![/Pheidippides]

 

[Jack7]

Before diving in here, a quick reply to Jack7's excellent post: I by-and-large like just about everything you've done except the removal of dice rolling. It ain't D+D to me if there's no dice involved, and it's not a good game until I've used every dice in the bag.

Oh, we use em. Most every game usually.
But only when really necessary or somebody chooses to for one reason or another.

However the way you said this,

and it's not a good game until I've used every dice in the bag

made me think of a very old joke, and so I laughed when I read it.

Appreciate the compliments too and I hope it helped somebody think of something worthwhile.

A new class - War Cleric - introduced as a sub-class of Cleric. Their combat spells are enhanced (and the somatic component is often to charge into melee combat) but their curing is drastically worse. Result: a wonderfully playable class at low levels that becomes a glass cannon higher up.

We use something like that, called the Warrior monk, which is modeled on the Byzantine Western Monk (which is where my campaign takes place) and later Catholic monks and priest who would go into combat. This isn't an Eastern monk, unarmed combat, but the Western historical (as a model) fighting monk.

In our campaign the Cavaliers (since you mentioned them) were originally a knightly order derived from the Western Roman Empire equestrian knights who later became body-guards to the Pope. The Paladins served under Charlemagne, and the Rangers were roman scouts who protected the borders of both the Western and Eastern Roman empires. As the Western Empire fell the anti-popes began to arise and one of them corrupted some of the Cavaliers who overnight tried to wipe out the loyal Cavaliers and tried to help assassinate as many Paladins and Rangers as they could locate (for both spiritual and political reasons), driving the Pope into exile.

This led to the almost extermination of the Cavaliers, and to many of them being absorbed in the Paladins and Palademes (the Eastern Empire Paladins) and to the Rangers going into hiding. The Cavaliers with the anti-pope got the nickname of the anti-Paladins because they seek to huntdown and assassinate the remaining Paladins (for both military and political reasons) and because they thought they had wiped out all of the Cavaliers.

So a handful of Cavaliers exist, in secret, usually given spiritual and political sanctuary, the Paladins are constantly hunted by the Anti-Paladins and their agents, and the Rangers operate indpendendently and secretly along the frontiers or in foreign or enemy nations, usually as spies, reconnaissance, scouts, frontier's law, and even as vigilantes.

It makes for very interesting NPC scenarios and sub-plots because the Anti-Paladins act as both a corrupt warrior and spy and assassin class, the Rangers hate and despise the Anti-Paladins (the anti-Paladins don't consider them much of a threat because the Rangers have mostly disappeared form sight and the Anti-Paladins seek political and urban power, they are uninterested in the frontiers and the wilds), the Paladins must guard against attempts at secret assassination, both against themselves and against their lords and spiritual leaders, and the Cavaliers are secretly up to their own agenda. Eventually the anti-pope was driven out and many of the Anti-Paladin Cavaliers were purged, but some few dozen or so escaped and now plot a return to power with a new anti-pope. So they plot revenge against the pope, assai against the Paladins, seek new political sponsorship, and unknown to them, the Cavaliers also plot a return to serving the pope and the Rangers plot to exterminate the Anti-Paladins.

I mention all of this because it shows how you can slightly alter the historical background of a class (or a profession to be more accurate) in both histrionically and game terms and completely change how that profession is played, and how the player and the character relates to the world he or she finds themselves in.

In time, because he has had to, the Paladin has become a master of security and defense. The anti-Paladin a master of assassination, and ambush, and espionage. The Ranger has become a master of ambush as well, and make for the most excellent frontier scouts and spies. But they have also become acute political operators in foreign lands and in enemy territory (where they are often employed by local rulers for secret missions) as the Paladins have become acute political operatives at home. the cavalier has become a master of stealth, espionage, and disguise. What was once a brash and headstrong organization is now crafty and cunning. Secretive and patient. The Ranger, once a lone operative has developed secret alliances and a network of contacts spreading far and wide, awaiting their opportunities to hunt down and abolish the anti-Paladins. They often act as double agents. The Paladin has become as much an agent of the state as the church, as pragmatic in many ways as idealistic in others.

In other words the Paladin is not "stuck in his ever unchanging background and role" and neither is the Cavalier, the Anti-Paladin, the Ranger, or others. Things can not only constantly change in the world, they can also constantly change for entire classes or professions of people, for both external and internal reasons, sometimes for good, and sometimes for ill. What I'm really saying to make a long story short is that Medieval worlds are often, because in many respects they are so different from our modern world (which we think of as constantly changing, and in many respects it is), seen as static and unchanging, and this includes character types and classes and professions. But a huge amount of Byzantine intrigue was going on everywhere, not just in the Courts of Constantinople. The world was in a constant state of dangerous flux, and that includes nations, races of peoples, classes and professions of people, and sometimes this flux was apparent to everyone and oftentimes it was secret and covert but nevertheless had far reaching consequences. And can for the players too. So over time I like to see character classes change, become different things, as an engineer of today is in some ways the same as an engineer of my grandfather's age, but in some ways also, a very, very different animal altogether.

So I'd like to add that one I guess, though I had never really thought of it in that way til you mentioned it.

13. Character Class and Professional Change - classes and professions change over time, gaining new motives and discarding old ones, and gaining new abilities and maybe discarding some old ones.

Anyways, gotta go.
Teaching class today.

See ya folks.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Thanks, but I'm not Shilson. I'm shilsen. My (hypothetical) son is Shilson

Looking forward to it. I'm already seeing some interesting ideas for potential stealing on this thread.

Err, actually my post is a double fluff because we don't actually mess with much of the d&d assumptions. We bang our heads on them on occasion, but noone has the time or appetite to create a smorgasboard of houserules. My whopper 2E effort crippled that desire, and career/family performed the x4 coup-de-gras.

I guess we do tinker with some assumptions, such as:

1) The idea of one set of rolls per character, as we do unlimited set rerolls.
2) Permanent character death is based on the player's consent, rather than fate of the dice and/or the availability resources.

Best I lurk in this thread.