D&D General On Grognardism...

[tetrasodium]

I mean, I guess that would depend on how you define light? Id say for me, fewer rules makes a game inherently lighter by definition.
This is one reason I prefer b/x to becm because becm started to become clunky with its (admittedly optional) skills and weapon masteries etc.

lighter is not the same as "rules light" though, rules light is a specific subset of RPGs. a ford f350 has better pickup, gas mileage, & top speed than a uhaul but neither of them should be included on a list of fast cars as they are neither fast nor cars. The codex alera books were part of a bet to prove the ability of a particular genere to become a bestseller but that in no way makes it a pokemon book.

 

[transmission89]

lighter is not the same as "rules light" though, rules light is a specific subset of RPGs. a ford f350 has better pickup, gas mileage, & top speed than a uhaul but neither of them should be included on a list of fast cars as they are neither fast nor cars. The codex alera books were part of a bet to prove the ability of a particular genere to become a bestseller but that in no way makes it a pokemon book.

You’re not wrong, but as I’ve said, my statements have only ever been made within the context of D&D based systems. So when I’ve said before B/X provides a rules light system, that is in relation to newer versions of D&D.
Which, to be honest, was the context that I understood from the original post of this thread.

 

[Ancalagon]

Spot on this.And this:

“5e is not rule light. It's "medium crunch". Look up Troika!, or perhaps the GLOG.”


My comments have only been made in context of D&D based systems, as I have little interest in other systems or latest flavours of the day. B/X is wonderfully light, complete system at 128 pages.
But, I shouldn’t elucidate further with my views, when others can state my opinions for me, I wouldn’t want to deprive them of that fun!!

the GLOG is D&D based.

 

[Ancalagon]

Never said 5e was rules light.

I said 5e uses fewer mechanics than pre3e

you called it, and quote, "easy butt". I'm not quite sure on the technical definition of "easy butt", but I concluded it must be in the same realm as rules light.

 

[Ancalagon]

"Codifying player abilities via feats or proficiencies, meanwhile, absolutely does limit what players can do. If you don't have the proficiency or the feat, you can't do the thing. That's inarguable."

You can still do all that if you have feats. The feats just remove the negotiation aspect on certain things, and give the player agency (which is what seems to bother old style DM's the most). You could still work out a heavy hit that trades accuracy for damage with the Dm even if the power attack feat exists.

Real example from the pathfinder game I'm in. I'm an alchemist. We kill monsters, some of which have all sorts of interesting tissues. I started collecting monster bits to use to make poisons, potions etc...

... but I was informed by the GM that I need a feat to do this. I'm a frickin alchemist but nope, I need the feat.

PF 1e has 1200 feats.

 

[kenada]

B/X I'd consider acceptable and could be re-written to be light but a table had better provide something important to be decent in play. That said the B/X the saving throws slightly confuse me; I've a mental model that works with why Rod/Staff/Wand, but why are wands on their own important enough to require their own category? On a tangent I actually like the old school saves.

As for OSE, I've given it a couple of minutes of research but the seeming inability of the SRD to use hyperlinks at appropriate places in the pages is currently annoying me and that plus the short sections are breaking my flow while reading. Is there something better?

Entirely agreed.

The OSE Basic Rules are available in PDF as a free download.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's bizarre. We saw Traveller as entirely map driven, seeing that there were so many rules for generating maps.

For us Traveller was mostly this:

With a little bit of this:

And once this:

The star map was only ever a backdrop to the space opera.

I think the takeaway here is that anyone who talks about "what gaming was like" at any time is limited by their own experiences. Nobody was taking global surveys - so it's anecdotes all the way down.

Absolutely this. And the thing to remember about those early days before the internet was those RPG groups existed in almost complete isolation, so they all evolved differently.

When someone says "back then we all played like this" it's rubbish. Back then we all played differently.

 

[Ancalagon]

That's bizarre. We saw Traveller as entirely map driven, seeing that there were so many rules for generating maps.

We treated it as a hex crawl where you tried to work out being a tramp trader (moving goods) and occaisonally got into "adventures" (stolen from various published modules).

I think the takeaway here is that anyone who talks about "what gaming was like" at any time is limited by their own experiences. Nobody was taking global surveys - so it's anecdotes all the way down.

My traveller experience is limited, but the map definitely was pretty important!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh, talking of Traveller and punching Nazis, does anyone else remember the Traveller adventure published in White Dwarf based on The Heroes Telemark, but with the addition of crashed aliens (the PCs) who needed the heavy water to repair their spaceship, and for whom chlorophyll was a narcotic? They don't write them like that any more!

 

[Coroc]

With the relative lack of 5e mechanics to discuss, there is (from my perspective) more of a trend this edition for Enworld discussions to be focused on more general D&D and RPG topics versus character build and rules parsing.

Among the majority of these general discussions are many threads involving the OSR, desire for things to not change from the past, and discussions on making your 5e game not feel like 5e.

I have been involved with D&D since the early 80s. I was the right demographic to watch the cartoon, I had the action figures , I had the choose-your-own-adventures, and I stole my brothers BECMI box sets out of his closet. I distinctly remember putting the 3 ring bound Basic book in my Trapper Keeper to try to read in 4th grade, although my knowledge of the rules was lacking, I absorbed that book like none other.

I didn't actually play RPGs properly until High School, the late 80s. There we had campaigns of every sort....2e D&D among others. This is when I learned how to actually play an RPG and then run them.

High School turned to young adulthood and 3e rolled in. I was super excited to see something NEW. I recruited some work friends and started a group to play it. Since then we have been gaming with the same core group up until today. During that time we have no ed from 3, to 4, to 5e. We have tried other systems. My favorite RPG of all time, Torg, has seen a complete reboot. We dip our toes into what's new and keep an eye out for what's next.

There are systems I like more than others. There are systems that everyone loved, and others that nobody really cared much for (DragonAge), and others in between. One thing that sta ds out to me however, is that we can find some nuggets of worth in most games and our game choice is as much a case of trying something new as it is mastering the old.

So this brings me to the grognards of Enworld. I am always baffled at the sheet amount of words in support of RPG gaming having peaked sometime in the late 70s, with no system since that time being in overall comparison sake "better" for them.

I don't really have a question, but more of an invitation for discussion. If you think RPG design peaked in the late 70s, what about that design speaks to you so strongly?

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.

Well simple reply, it did not peak in the 70s, but with 2e, in the 90s.
By chance thats the time i got into pen and paper, coaxed by the EOB series. I had some gold box games, for the C64 Computer before, and i read some books but that is what started it for me.

5e is the best edition for Pen and Paper so far, but some aspects of modern RP do really bugger me.
That is the communism like balancing out coming from Online MMPORPG (which ironically would not exist without D&D) , were it was sometimes very essential in contrast to pen and paper.

3e tried to cure many things of basic, 1e, 2e, using things like upward AC and rolls, but bloated the game so much that it was impractical to use oat the table (mulitple buffs etc.)

4e tried to learn from the MMPORGs and tried to balance it all out by using strict metrics. But that slowed down things even more.

5e was my reentry into playing the game (I skipped 3e and 4e for non computer D&D), but i miss some possibilities of the old times, well not really, there are methods i use to include them into 5e.
I like restricting (classes, races, equipment, available spells), to give the game world a certain feel, but i have not found out yet, how to e.g. properly limit some maximum spell level achievable by a class (e.g. limit cleric spells to 5th level), without severely nerfing the class at higher char level and thus make it unattractive to my players.

Nevertheless BA, advantage/disadvantage and concentration mechanics are some of the best innovations of 5e and one might ask why they did not invent these things earlyer.