D&D General On Grognardism...

[Neonchameleon]

The flip side of your rebuttal is that I could argue it makes D&D more accessible to everyone as the players don’t need to know the rules.

They are free to engage with the fiction, you want to do something? Tell me, my job is to act as the interface between the player’s actions and the rules.

It's "more accessible" as long as you don't actually want to engage with the world in my experience. In the real world I may not be able to solve the equations for a thrown ball (at least not when you take air resistance and my rust into account) - but when someone throws a ball I can be reasonably confident where it will land and in other ways have an intuitive understanding of the mechanics of the world. And there are literally dozens of examples I could come up with like this.

What this means is that without having a decent understanding of the mechanics in question I am significantly less able to engage with the fiction than I am if I do because I do not understand the underlying mechanics of the setting. Tone only takes you so far - and tones can vary drastically especially when such a gamist convention as hit points are a key part of the system.

Having rules and structure provides advantages for roleplaying over freeform because it allows me to, as a player, act more confidently and with greater freedom while knowing that what I want to do meshes closely with the shared fiction despite the fact we have never discussed it. Having rules but knowing that as a player they are kept from me just makes me feel that I'm in an unmarked minefield and provides the worst of all worlds between freeform and mechanically structured.

And having a DM who won't tell me what the rules are is having a DM who is purposely and deliberately inserting themselves between me and the fiction, making it harder to reach. If the DM's job is to act as the interface between the player and the rules then purposely hiding the rules when the player wants to reach them means that the DM is about as helpful as pop-up advertising and rather than being a helpful user interface they are getting in the way.

Meanwhile as a DM I don't want to have to learn dozens of subsystems and I don't want to be the one preventing the players doing their thing.

As for "gauging the impact of a plethora of hard coded abilities on my adventure", firstly it's not my adventure. I'm not the one going on it. If it's anyone's adventure it's the players'. And secondly if the players catch me off guard good for them. They've done something cool. I prefer to let them have their genuine victories rather than spoon feeding them to them by their only using pre-approved abilities in pre-approved ways.

 

[transmission89]

It's "more accessible" as long as you don't actually want to engage with the world in my experience. In the real world I may not be able to solve the equations for a thrown ball (at least not when you take air resistance and my rust into account) - but when someone throws a ball I can be reasonably confident where it will land and in other ways have an intuitive understanding of the mechanics of the world. And there are literally dozens of examples I could come up with like this.

What this means is that without having a decent understanding of the mechanics in question I am significantly less able to engage with the fiction than I am if I do because I do not understand the underlying mechanics of the setting. Tone only takes you so far - and tones can vary drastically especially when such a gamist convention as hit points are a key part of the system.

Having rules and structure provides advantages for roleplaying over freeform because it allows me to, as a player, act more confidently and with greater freedom while knowing that what I want to do meshes closely with the shared fiction despite the fact we have never discussed it. Having rules but knowing that as a player they are kept from me just makes me feel that I'm in an unmarked minefield and provides the worst of all worlds between freeform and mechanically structured.

And having a DM who won't tell me what the rules are is having a DM who is purposely and deliberately inserting themselves between me and the fiction, making it harder to reach. If the DM's job is to act as the interface between the player and the rules then purposely hiding the rules when the player wants to reach them means that the DM is about as helpful as pop-up advertising and rather than being a helpful user interface they are getting in the way.

Meanwhile as a DM I don't want to have to learn dozens of subsystems and I don't want to be the one preventing the players doing their thing.

As for "gauging the impact of a plethora of hard coded abilities on my adventure", firstly it's not my adventure. I'm not the one going on it. If it's anyone's adventure it's the players'. And secondly if the players catch me off guard good for them. They've done something cool. I prefer to let them have their genuine victories rather than spoon feeding them to them by their only using pre-approved abilities in pre-approved ways.

/sigh and this is the clash of new school mindset vs old school. A debate long held and misunderstood on both sides. For the old school mindset to work, you need three things 1) a DM with a fair hand in adjudicating, 2) players that are willing to collaborate and engage with the DM and world and 3) players with the ability to trust their DM. New school is a reaction to that, an expression of lack of trust, this is evident in the language you have used...

1) you don't need mechanical quantifying to engage meaningfully as this is part and parcel of the player/dm negotiation I was talking about... Your lack of willingness to engage with the DM is showing.
2) I never said the DM won't tell you the rules. Nor that a DM purposefully obfuscates them. I said as a player, you don't need them. Your lack of trust is showing.
3) The number of subsystems is not into the dozens. There are few. Good on you for having all of the detailed feats, abilities, spell interactions, and codified actions and statuses from the later editions fully memorised though. I'd hate for you to prevent your players from doing their thing if you're not sure how certain rule segments interact.
4) I never implied that "my adventure" was a railroad, or that I can't be caught off guard. I just merely used that as a short hand for "scenario I created without having to specifically worry if it matched the player's abilities and was appropriately balanced or negatively impacts their ability to do a thing. I'll just do this thing instead and let them figure it out..." But I will be sure to be more explicit and verbose for you next time...

 

[Neonchameleon]

/sigh and this is the clash of new school mindset vs old school. A debate long held and misunderstood on both sides. For the old school mindset to work, you need three things 1) a DM with a fair hand in adjudicating, 2) players that are willing to collaborate and engage with the DM and world and 3) players with the ability to trust their DM. New school is a reaction to that, an expression of lack of trust, this is evident in the language you have used...

On the contrary. You're the one with the lack of trust. As you make entirely clear when you talk about abilities breaking your adventure.

Me, I trust my players. Which is why I am more than happy that they have tools. And I trust the game designer to give them abilities that are reasonable and not ridiculously broken (and myself to select a system where this is the case). Therefore I do not have to act with paranoia.

It's about time and effectiveness rather than trust. As a player I am more than capable of engaging with the rules - and as a DM I can trust the same for most of my players. Trust simply isn't an issue. Time and efficiency is. But it's telling that you jump to trust as a motivation.

1) you don't need mechanical quantifying to engage meaningfully as this is part and parcel of the player/dm negotiation I was talking about... Your lack of willingness to engage with the DM is showing.

You know one thing the DM is not showing? The player's character. Regardless of which side of the screen I am on in a D&D style relationship (rather than AW or Fate style) the player is the one with the player character.

If the DM is inserting himself between me and the mechanics of my character he is inserting himself between me and my character. He is getting in the way and ensuring that I take longer to do anything than if I can be confident about what I am doing because I know what the mechanics and rules of the setting are.

And as the DM my time, attention, and communication are all limited resources - and there are far more calls on my time and mental energy than anyone else's. If as the DM I am inserting myself between the player and the rules that gives me less time and mental resources to focus on the world and the interactions.

Therefore, even as a best case scenario the DM is being less effective as a DM if they are focusing on the rules for my character and I'm being slower and more aggravating as a player. This isn't trust - it's obnoxiousness. I don't distrust pop-ups but they are annoying and I adblock.

It's also about everyone pitching in and doing their fair share rather than either stealing all the work (and on occasion lording it over those who aren't helping) or freeloading.

2) I never said the DM won't tell you the rules. Nor that a DM purposefully obfuscates them. I said as a player, you don't need them. Your lack of trust is showing.

I don't need them if I want to take up more time at the table running things past the DM and slowing both of us down while preventing the DM doing things that only the DM can do.

3) The number of subsystems is not into the dozens. There are few. Good on you for having all of the detailed feats, abilities, spell interactions, and codified actions and statuses from the later editions fully memorised though. I'd hate for you to prevent your players from doing their thing if you're not sure how certain rule segments interact.

Why on earth would I even need to memorize all the feats and all the abilities? If I can trust the players (which I normally can) and can trust the game designer (and if I can't I play another game) then why do I need to actually know what the player side content says unless someone asks or someone makes an egregious mistake? And given that these are about specific events the rules can be looked up.

On a sidenote this is why I refuse to DM 3.X because in that system (unlike 4e or 5e) I actually need to know what random feats do because they are part of the monster statblocks. I'm unhappy with editions other than 4e because as a DM I'm supposed to at least memorise spells for spellcasting monsters even if they are nowhere near as bad as 3.X

But your comment here appears to me to stem from such a fundamental distrust of the players and/or the rules that it makes sense why you think it's all about trust not about effectiveness.

4) I never implied that "my adventure" was a railroad, or that I can't be caught off guard. I just merely used that as a short hand for "scenario I created without having to specifically worry if it matched the player's abilities and was appropriately balanced or negatively impacts their ability to do a thing. I'll just do this thing instead and let them figure it out..." But I will be sure to be more explicit and verbose for you next time...

You did imply it. And have just said that you tailor your scenarios round the abilities of the specific PCs rather than running a more living world. The times I tailor encounters round the PCs are when the PCs are taking the initiative or things are being tailored to the PCs.

 

[Minigiant]

Could you elaborate on this? The sequences were all pretty well laid out I thought and easy to follow step by step.

There were multiple different mechanics. That's a lot.

I am saying this as a DM who must remind players how to roll to attack EVERY SINGLE SESSION.

Dear Raven Queen if I had to run OD&D with my Saturday group, I'd stab someone eventually.

 

[transmission89]

On the contrary. You're the one with the lack of trust. As you make entirely clear when you talk about abilities breaking your adventure.

Me, I trust my players. Which is why I am more than happy that they have tools. And I trust the game designer to give them abilities that are reasonable and not ridiculously broken (and myself to select a system where this is the case). Therefore I do not have to act with paranoia.

It's about time and effectiveness rather than trust. As a player I am more than capable of engaging with the rules - and as a DM I can trust the same for most of my players. Trust simply isn't an issue. Time and efficiency is. But it's telling that you jump to trust as a motivation.

You know one thing the DM is not showing? The player's character. Regardless of which side of the screen I am on in a D&D style relationship (rather than AW or Fate style) the player is the one with the player character.

If the DM is inserting himself between me and the mechanics of my character he is inserting himself between me and my character. He is getting in the way and ensuring that I take longer to do anything than if I can be confident about what I am doing because I know what the mechanics and rules of the setting are.

And as the DM my time, attention, and communication are all limited resources - and there are far more calls on my time and mental energy than anyone else's. If as the DM I am inserting myself between the player and the rules that gives me less time and mental resources to focus on the world and the interactions.

Therefore, even as a best case scenario the DM is being less effective as a DM if they are focusing on the rules for my character and I'm being slower and more aggravating as a player. This isn't trust - it's obnoxiousness. I don't distrust pop-ups but they are annoying and I adblock.

It's also about everyone pitching in and doing their fair share rather than either stealing all the work (and on occasion lording it over those who aren't helping) or freeloading.

I don't need them if I want to take up more time at the table running things past the DM and slowing both of us down while preventing the DM doing things that only the DM can do.

Why on earth would I even need to memorize all the feats and all the abilities? If I can trust the players (which I normally can) and can trust the game designer (and if I can't I play another game) then why do I need to actually know what the player side content says unless someone asks or someone makes an egregious mistake? And given that these are about specific events the rules can be looked up.

On a sidenote this is why I refuse to DM 3.X because in that system (unlike 4e or 5e) I actually need to know what random feats do because they are part of the monster statblocks. I'm unhappy with editions other than 4e because as a DM I'm supposed to at least memorise spells for spellcasting monsters even if they are nowhere near as bad as 3.X

But your comment here appears to me to stem from such a fundamental distrust of the players and/or the rules that it makes sense why you think it's all about trust not about effectiveness.

You did imply it. And have just said that you tailor your scenarios round the abilities of the specific PCs rather than running a more living world. The times I tailor encounters round the PCs are when the PCs are taking the initiative or things are being tailored to the PCs.

Oh good lord. I said I didn’t need to tailor it around the ability of my players specifically because I wasn’t using a new school rule set. And my original statement which took on you on this bizarre tangent:

“I’ll take that over having to gauge the constant impact of a plethora of various codified abilities and hard coded rules on my adventure design any day.”

There are two separate points (and I’ll be charitable to your misreading and say it was too ambiguously worded and open to misinterpretation)
point 1) I’ll take that over having to gauge the constant impact of a plethora of various codified abilities in reference to who I was replying to around abilities.
point 2) and hard coded rules on my adventure design any day.

is what I was trying to express.
You can continue claiming what my views on adventure design are for me if you wish, but my comments (particularly in the dungeon crawl thread) espouse a very different view. But please, carry on if it makes you happy.

As to your other points, I have no paranoia or trust issues. I was pointing out that that was a mark of new school thinking in reaction to old school approaches. Which you so eloquently demonstrated in the vocabulary used describing the DM in your first reply and continue to use in this one. In fact, I was making the opposite point, that the old school perspective relies on it.

Your need for the players to pitch in is also self defeating from your position. You need it because as a GM, you’re so busy mentally doing x,y,z. Which, with old school slimmer rules sets, is not as burdensome. which was exactly my point!
You also jumped in my reply to looking at it from player accessibility.
Which is why I was talking about players not needing to know the rules. It’s my ability as DM to act as an interface to help. If a player is comfortable with the rules, great! With your players needing to pitch in and know their own stuff, this automatically drops accessibility. Which again, makes my point for me.

So thank you for your agreement in what I was saying there.

I’m also not sure what your intended outcome for your posts are??

The topic of the thread is why we still play the older editions. I’ve posted about why I enjoy them and personally prefer them to modern iterations. If you enjoy the modern editions great! Good for you.
I’m just not seeing the point of you posting your views about the older edition’s flaws and the virtues of the modern editions. Given that the majority here, as by definition of the thread, have talked about why they stay (or at least play in addition to new versions)

 

[transmission89]

There were multiple different mechanics. That's a lot.

I am saying this as a DM who must remind players how to roll to attack EVERY SINGLE SESSION.

Dear Raven Queen if I had to run OD&D with my Saturday group, I'd stab someone eventually.

Which isn’t the same as the procedures I was talking about?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The very first time I sat down and played through a combat encounter in D&D 4th edition I thought to myself, "That really reminded me of World of Warcraft." 4th edition had roles that directly corresponded to classes and/or player responsibilities in dungeons and raids in WoW including defenders (tanks), strikers (DPS), controller (crowd control), leaders (buffs), and healers. Whenever I used my attacks/abilities in 4th edition it felt very similar to smashing my 3 button to cast Thunderclap in WoW. 4th edition D&D really made me think of MMORPGs.

Is that necessarily bad? I don't think so. And one thing I really liked about 4th edition is that they made sure every character class had something to contribute during an encounter.

Oh I'm not saying there aren't some basic conceptual similarities, like the broad division of roles, just as 3E seemed to be partially inspired by stuff like EQ (basically because people were thinking along the same lines in terms of systematizing things in that era), but what I'm questioning is the claim that it actually "plays" like "slow-motion WoW" at the table, which is utterly inaccurate.

I say this particularly because WoW and similar MMOs have a very distinctive and quite narrow way of operating, where all the monsters attack one person (ignoring the rest), and then the job of the party is to keep that person alive whilst killing the monsters. And this has a whole lot of associated behaviour that bears no resemblance to 4E. It does, again, as I said, bear some resemblance to Final Fantasy Tactics and similar games. I can go into this at great length but I shall spare us!

This seems to be more about RPG Pundit's politics and Zak S's personal behaviour than anything to do with game design.

Edit: And both are Gen Xers who came fairly late to the OSR.

You're really making my point with your edit there.

WotC had plenty of people who were involved with the OSR movement who they could have chosen to involve with 5E. Most of those people are pretty cool people, and were even in say, 2014 or whenever they started work on this. Instead of taking the most talented or experienced people involved with the OSR, they made an essentially political (in the game-politics sense)/PR decision to pick the loudest voices in OSR stuff. We all know about the eccentric "punk" antics of one, and the other was already an extremely loud and frankly unpleasant and poorly-behaved character, whose entirely popularity stemmed from essentially being extremely unpleasant and rude, which apparently appeals to a certain sort of person.

This was not picking people for their talent, nor for their genuine contribution to OSR. You say they're Johnny-Come-Latelys? I completely agree! But WotC picked them, presumably because they wanted to send a message about D&D Next. It is genuinely incredible to see their names in the context - not many people were consulted, here I'll list them:

Jeff Grubb, Kenneth Hite, Kevin Kulp, Robin Laws, S. John Ross, the RPGPundit, Vincent Venturella, and Zak S.

Jeff Grubb needs no introduction, Hite, Kulp, Laws and Ross are all successful and innovative RPG designers, with decades of experience, and Laws was near-legendary and Hite not far behind in respect. They had some seriously risk-taking RPGs there. So that was sending a message too - to RPG fans that 5E wasn't going to be completely retrograde. Vincent Venturella seems to be an expert minis painter, not really sure what's going on there. And then we have the other two. Neither of them has remotely the experience and publishing history of the other people consulted. And whilst both had published OSR stuff (Zak S. far more than the other), both were kind of Johnny-Come-Latelys to OSR. Yet there they are, being consulted as if they had similar levels of expertise, or rather, not because of that, because WotC wanted to send a message, as I said.

This also helps illustrate how 5E was an "apology edition", and not actually intended primarily to reach a larger audience, just to attempt to regain an existing one. They aren't people you'd want input from if you were trying to make D&D go big with under-40s, which is what has happened.

 

[Marc_C]

I do have a lot of nostalgia for that Basic rulebook I had in the early 80s, but having played the game compared to a modem design my admiration for that system is entirely based on the nostalgia it represents. Descending AC, wizards with one spell a day and 4hp, puzzles mixing real world knowledge with character problem solving and "beating the adventure" versus "telling a good story" all are things I avoid in 2021.

I have occasional nostalgia for my early 80s B/X games. I bought OSE in January 2021 and did a solitary adventure with 4 characters. I used the class separate from race option and started them at levels 4-6 to avoid dying too quickly. It was interesting. The exploration and dungeon procedures are fun in solitary mode. Brough back good memories but also many complaints I (we) had about the TSR rules, including 1e and 2e.

Today, I wouldn't create a campaign with TSR editions or WoTC. Been there, done that. I play other contemporary non-D&D fantasy RPG systems instead. I'm 56. Never was and never will be a grognard.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This viewpoint is one of the most common I see from fans of Basic/1e versus new. It's actually one of the reasons that I started the thread....

To me, I think the underlying simplicity of D20+mod vs DC is the key to making D&D accessible to everyone. As a GM, in order to be able to improvise under that system I just have to keep in mind a general scale of difficulty and a general range of acceptable modifiers to apply and I can roll with any situation.

With older systems, to effectively GM on the fly I have to know all the different subsystems which have different mechanics in order to do the same job. I have to know giving a guy +3 on his to hit roll is a good but fair bonus, but giving a rogue +3 on a pick pocket is inconsequentially harmful, giving the monk a +3 to their AC is being mean, and giving the cleric a +3 to turn undead is super awesome, and giving the barbarian +3 to lift that gate is basically just letting them auto succeed.

I do agree with you that in a system less codified players have the ability to not press their ability buttons, but the flip side of that same non codification means it's much harder for me to dial in the range of affect those actions have on the game.

I mean, if you did that in classic 1e, you'd be in trouble. But mostly because Thieves used percentiles to pick pockets, a "+" to an ac (like the monk's) makes it go down- which is good! - so the monk would be thrilled with the +3, and the UA barbarian class was anathema to all that is holy and good and needed to be burned at the stake .... plus, you used percentiles for lifting the gate. But yeah, +3 to turn undead? That would be cool, but not as cool as turning undead at a level higher, which would be better than the +3 bonus until level 9!

ain't no pedantry like the grognard pedantry 'cuz the groganrd pedantry don't stop

So the problem with the analysis, IMO, is that there is a major difference in the way that the games are played, which makes a huge difference in your analysis.

As a general rule, people who played and DM'd and learned during the OD&D/1e/BECMI era expected to pick & choose rules, expected to homebrew, and expected to do things on the fly. Not only were the subsystems often bespoke, but so were the experiences from table to table. Sure, you'd get some areas of general commonality (fighters would have d10 hp / level at an AD&D 1e table), but given tables had vast differences between them, and DMs would often adjust "on the fly" with rules in order to streamline things.

More often than not, the expectation today (something I think has grown since 3e) is that the rules are the rules. Period. Which can be stultifying for some DMs ... and some players.

Not all. There are some who prefer it that way. But when I am running D&D, whether it's 5e or Moldvay or 1e or whatever, I tend to run it in a loose manner ... the same way that I did when I started.

 

[S'mon]

They aren't people you'd want input from if you were trying to make D&D go big with under-40s, which is what has happened.

It seems to me that the (fairly mild) OSR elements in 5e are part of its broad accessibility/appeal. I think Mearls & co could have consulted with other, quieter, OSR people and got equally good advice. But it doesn't seem like the design team got bad advice. And maybe they needed loud voices before they'd listen.