New Ruleset?

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I'd be fascinated, personally.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In my experience, the 1e primary conflict was not against the setting as a whole. It was, perhaps, against a given dungeon.

That's what I mean.

And, while I can see that you don't feel this is a rules issue, I do. If the primary conflict is with the dungeon (what I called setting), then not every fight has to be tactically interesting. Some fights are simply part of the color....in the same way that some fight scenes in a Howard story are fairly glossed over, while other fights are critical to the story as a whole.

You can do this is 3e, using lower CR foes for the "glossed over fights", but since the combat engine is so rigorous (a real strength for tactically interesting fights) for myself and for some others, the length of time a combat takes makes the "glossed over fights" sometimes seem fairly boring. I didn't have that experience knocking in the head of an occasional kobold in 1e.

One might view this in a way similar to encounters overall. Some encounters are intended to be important, others are intended to be minor, while still other "encounters" are intended to provide nothing more than color and verisimilitude to a setting. That final group includes things like finding the tracks of a monster, sighting occasional animals, and so on. IMHO, raiding a giant ant's nest (say) should include all kinds of "color combats" that don't necessarily strain the PCs too much, and shouldn't take up too much game time.

I envision something, perhaps, where mooks have mook-level stat blocks and the important fights have advanced stat blocks. I think (though not having tried it yet, I don't know) that it ought to be possible.

I suppose this all comes down to "Different puddings for different people".

 

[Raven Crowking]

It had everything to do with our playstyle - we were young, and our primary mode of playing was "buy dungeon module, play module, buy next module".

I bought a lot of modules over time, which were included within the campaign setting that I was running, but apart from B1, when I started gaming I ran a game for over a year without using any modules. My primary experience was "create setting, play in setting, keep expanding setting based on what the players find interesting".


RC

 

[Umbran]

Some fights are simply part of the color....in the same way that some fight scenes in a Howard story are fairly glossed over, while other fights are critical to the story as a whole.

I think I might take the idea further than you. At this time of life, my players' time is precious to them. They don't come to my table to be bored. So, I rather strongly divide between thigns that are interesting, and things that aren't. If it isn't supposed to be interesting, I describe it well, and move on. A fight that Howard would gloss over as flavor, I simply describe as flavor, with no mechanic at all.

I've seen mooks used in an interesting fashion, but they weren't "glossed over". There's a big difference between being tactically uninteresting, individually, and being a mechanically simple part of a l;arger tactically interesting scene.

IMHO, raiding a giant ant's nest (say) should include all kinds of "color combats" that don't necessarily strain the PCs too much, and shouldn't take up too much game time.

Quite true. But, then see above - why have a stat block at all if they are only there as color? I have cobwebs and bushes I describe for color, too, but I don't worry about their hardness.

 

[WSmith]

This might not be what you are looking for, but I contributed to it. So here is a shameless plug.

It might be helpful actually, as some of what you seek is done already.

http://www.basicfantasy.org/

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think I might take the idea further than you. At this time of life, my players' time is precious to them. They don't come to my table to be bored. So, I rather strongly divide between thigns that are interesting, and things that aren't. If it isn't supposed to be interesting, I describe it well, and move on. A fight that Howard would gloss over as flavor, I simply describe as flavor, with no mechanic at all.

(1) I don't believe that flavor isn't supposed to be interesting.

(2) I don't think that players should always know when an encounter is supposed to be significant.


RC

 

[Umbran]

(1) I don't believe that flavor isn't supposed to be interesting.

Flavor is interesting, but not tactically so. If it is tactically ineresting, it moves into the texture realm - crunch

(2) I don't think that players should always know when an encounter is supposed to be significant.

My game runs once a month, for maybe six hours, if I am lucky. I simply don't have game-time to spare on things that won't turn out to be relevant. If I did, my game would never get anywhere.

And even if we had more time, my players aren't very interested in combat for the sake of combat, even if it is rules-light. Simply put, my players get bored if the fights are too easy. Flavorful or not, they'd prefer to not bother.

Plus, the argument that they shouldn't know if the encounter is significant is really a question of resource expenditure and realistic choices. If they know the goblin has no class levels, they'll treat it differently than if they think it might have 10 fighter levels, right?

The point is to make it so they treat every encounter as significant. That is achieved if every encounter is significant.

 

[Raven Crowking]

My game runs once a month, for maybe six hours, if I am lucky. I simply don't have game-time to spare on things that won't turn out to be relevant. If I did, my game would never get anywhere.

Sorry to hear that. Here's to your getting more free time (in a good way!) in the future.

Like I said earlier, each to his own pudding. My question was more related to determining if there was anyone out there interested in a helping of the sort of pudding I was thinking of than a discussion of the relative merits of various pudding recipes (which is a current moratorium subject anyhow).

I wish you all the best.

RC

 

[Umbran]

My question was more related to determining if there was anyone out there interested in a helping of the sort of pudding I was thinking of than a discussion of the relative merits of various pudding recipes (which is a current moratorium subject anyhow).

I'm not really discussing the merits of recipes - I'm discussing dietary restrictions, and delving into whether one particular ingredient is really necessary. But, as you wish.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm not really discussing the merits of recipes - I'm discussing dietary restrictions, and delving into whether one particular ingredient is really necessary. But, as you wish.

Happy to follow your train of thought and discuss this in another thread.