Played Basic D&D for the first time in over 20 years last night...

[Mallus]

Matt, there's a lot of good stuff in this post, but... (hey it wouldn't be the Internet if we all agreed...).

So I feel we're all being somewhat disingenuous when we say "Oh it's just as much about roleplaying as ever."

Not me and my group. Some of the best characters I had the pleasure of running for were in 3e and 4e campaigns. In fact, our 3e game got turned into a semi-popular Story Hour (Burne link in my .sig) here, and I can't think of a better testimony to role-playing quality than "a bunch of strangers wanted to read stories about our characters for over a year".

Well, maybe it's not. If you give people a stack of cards with cool powers on them, they're going to spend their time looking at them, figuring them out, imagining how cool they'll be to use, and eagerly waiting for a chance to use them.

This seems likely, yes...

If you don't give people anything, they'll pay attention to everything else. The world, the details, their character, his goals and personality. They'll be inventive, frightened, courageous.

... but this doesn't follow. First off, why would simpler PC mechanics necessarily result in a greater interest in the setting? Don't players become interested in a game world because it's interesting? For my money, there's no "magic bullet" for securing and increasing player engagement. You have to present them with an interesting world which changes as they move through it (usually burning everything in their wake... damn PC's).

As for goals and personality... my practical experiences are players who like to give their PC's goals, motivations, and all the rest of the trappings of rich characterization will do so, regardless of the complexity of the rules, and those that aren't interested in that sort of thing from the play experience won't. End of story (or should I say 'End of line' in honor the Tron sequel??).

Player interest in the external setting is a product of play itself. Player interest in the internal aspects of their characters; motivation, personality, etc. rests entirely on the player being interested in them. The relative complexity of the character mechanics has little to do with either of these things (at least w/r/t D&D).

So give them situations involving people in conflict with each other, the party, and themselves. Situations that can't be solved with their powers. Revel in ambiguity. Rarely should there be obviously correct things to do. Faulkner said the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself. Put that in your game. Don't let the players off the hook with easy solutions, put conflicts in front of them where it seems like everyone's right and everyone's in conflict.

This, of course, is simply excellent advice.

 

[Keldryn]

... but this doesn't follow. First off, why would simpler PC mechanics necessarily result in a greater interest in the setting? Don't players become interested in a game world because it's interesting? For my money, there's no "magic bullet" for securing and increasing player engagement. You have to present them with an interesting world which changes as they move through it (usually burning everything in their wake... damn PC's).

As for goals and personality... my practical experiences are players who like to give their PC's goals, motivations, and all the rest of the trappings of rich characterization will do so, regardless of the complexity of the rules, and those that aren't interested in that sort of thing from the play experience won't. End of story (or should I say 'End of line' in honor the Tron sequel??).

For my group, the complexity of the game mechanics does have an adverse effect on some of the players' interest in the setting and in developing their PCs' personalities. Of my four regular players, two would be considered "casual" in the sense that their involvement with D&D lasts only as long as they are sitting at my dining room table every other Saturday night. They will never own their own books, nor are they likely to even read any of the rulebooks outside of the game. When the game mechanics become more demanding than what they can understand with a few short sentences during the game, then their focus is almost entirely on trying to make sense of how to play the game, rather than just playing it.

Both of my casual players were far more engaged in the Basic game than they were in the 4e game because their characters were extremely simple (both Fighters) and they didn't feel overwhelmed. This was despite the fact that I was running HS1 The Slaying Stone in the 4e game, and while the Nentir Vale isn't the most exciting, well-developed setting, I wasn't even using a defined setting in the Basic game. Just a hastily-prepared dungeon crawl without any plot hooks aside from "there's treasure in here." But the much simpler PC mechanics allowed these two players to be much more engaged in interacting with the setting, as sketchy as it was.

Player interest in the external setting is a product of play itself. Player interest in the internal aspects of their characters; motivation, personality, etc. rests entirely on the player being interested in them. The relative complexity of the character mechanics has little to do with either of these things (at least w/r/t D&D).

All of the PCs in the Basic one-shot ended up having more developed personalities than did the PCs after three sessions of the 4e game. It was particularly true for the two casual/novice players, but it was true for the other two players as well.

Now, this is certainly not an absolute truth, as many 3e and 4e players are able to develop their characters' personalities during play and be very engaged in the fictional setting of the game. Once me, my sister, and the experienced 3e player get a little more familiar with 4e, I'm sure we'll have an easier time of it. For my wife and my sister's boyfriend, the complexity of the rules requires so much cognitive effort that they don't seem to have much left for focusing on the in-game fiction. The inordinate focus on the game mechanics then leaves them feeling bored with the game and thus uninterested in the story elements.

In 3e and 4e games that I have DMed or played in, it is very easy to get distracted by game mechanics and it does sometimes require a conscious effort to let them fade into the background. If the DM and all of the players are very familiar with the core rules, then this becomes much less of an obstacle. The more complex the game mechanics become, the longer this process takes, and the greater the risk of the less-invested players just getting bored and dropping out.

I've played in groups where all of the players are avid D&Ders, own a Player's Handbook plus several splatbooks, and are very well-versed in the important rules of the game and the fiction of the game world. In this sort of group, the game mechanics are frequently not an obstacle to players becoming engaged in their characters and the game setting. Well, until the inevitable rules arguments break out.

Not all gaming groups are going to be like that (nor should they be), and quite frankly, I feel that neither the 3rd nor 4th Edition D&D games are very approachable to non-gamers. And by "non-gamers" I mean those people for whom gaming is not a primary hobby. My wife and my sister's boyfriend are currently regular players in my every-other-Saturday game, but they're not (nor will they ever be) gamers in the sense that me, my sister, and the 4th player are. The three of us all own a lot of D&D books, have played for years, have DMed campaigns, have played other RPGs, and often just read RPG books for enjoyment.

For players who just want to show up every other week, have fun for 3 or 4 hours, and then forget about the game until the next session, the Basic D&D game is probably a much better fit. 3e and 4e require a fair bit of an investment of time and effort on the part of the players to become comfortable with the core rules of the game. And I think that most players need to that level of comfort with the game mechanics in order to let them fade into the background and focus more of their attention on the story aspects. Until then, there is quite likely a feeling of playing two different games and the story suddenly grinds to a halt while the dice-rolling games take center stage.

 

[Treebore]

The bottom line is to play the game you like. After my burn out with 3E I was at a loss. I didn't want to go back to the older editions. I would have gone back to 2E if I hadn't lost my house rule documents, and I wasn't looking forward to rebuilding those rules.

Anyways, I found an RPG that interested me and took a look at it. It had a nice skeletal system upon which I could hang the various rules from the various RPG's. So I ran with it, taking the time to see how it worked, and slowly added, and eventually even subtracted, various rules. After about a year of playing and getting into double digit levels I had a very solid set of house rules that have now made the RPG into my perfect RPG. I now have no interest in any new editions. Why? Because I have taken the time to build this RPG into my perfect system, so I don't need a new edition! If I want that I'll just add house rules!

The only reason anyone needs to know the rules "by the book" is for participating in a Living campaign and being able to sit down and play a given game at a Convention.

In your home, for your home group, you do what you need to do to turn it into the perfect game tailor fitted for you and your group.

Heck, I am so spoiled by my RPG that when I go to Conventions I don't have any interest in playing D&D. The various versions played just aren't good enough anymore to interest me. So now I go and play other RPG's I am interested in. So I run Traveller, my daughter runs L5R and I play in those, and I try out other games like Starblazers, Dresden Files, Cthonian Stars, Mouse Guard, Cthulthu Tech, Eclipse Phase, Fantasy Craft, etc... and find out how fun they can be.

The bad things is they are fun, so now I am spending money getting the rules for all of them!

Anyways, forget about what a company or a bunch of people say is the right way to play a given RPG, take the rules set you like best and take the time to tweak it into your perfect little game. It is well worth the effort, and strangely enough is what the guy who started the RPG rage wanted us to do all along.

 

[nedjer]

Anyways, forget about what a company or a bunch of people say is the right way to play a given RPG, take the rules set you like best and take the time to tweak it into your perfect little game. It is well worth the effort, and strangely enough is what the guy who started the RPG rage wanted us to do all along.

p9 of 1e DMG has more on this. GG went so far as to say "as a sim . . . it can be deemed to be a dismal failure". The section could be read as 'a right way to play', but, overall seems to recognise that a TRPG is a game suited to open-ended, imaginative play and attempts to use it as a wargame aren't using a system suited to wargaming. Limited Wish comes straight to mind.

 

[Treebore]

p9 of 1e DMG has more on this. GG went so far as to say "as a sim . . . it can be deemed to be a dismal failure". The section could be read as 'a right way to play', but, overall seems to recognise that a TRPG is a game suited to open-ended, imaginative play and attempts to use it as a wargame aren't using a system suited to wargaming. Limited Wish comes straight to mind.

I think the quote in my sig states Gary's, and TSR's, position pretty clearly.

 

[Dausuul]

Just dug up a blog post of mine from back in March of '08, the day after Gary Gygax's passing. (This was before the release of 4E, but much of what I say about 3.5E applies to 4E as well.) It seemed appropriate here...

Last night, in memory of Gary Gygax, some friends and I got together and played an impromptu game of Classic D&D (or BECMI, if you prefer; the red box/blue box/cyan box/black box game where only the thief knows how to walk quietly and "elf" and "dwarf" are classes).

And I have to say that I was amazed.

A bit of background: I cut my gaming teeth on Classic back when dinosaurs ruled the earth--okay, twenty years ago--but fairly soon made the jump to AD&D and 2nd Edition. As far as I know, I was the only member of the group who had ever played it. Of the others, I believe two had learned on 2E, and three on 3E or 3.5E. I myself was very rusty on the mechanics, so there was a definite learning curve for everybody. ("Wait... so which is good in this edition, high numbers or low numbers?" "Depends on what you're rolling!")

Nevertheless, they all rolled up characters in the 8th- to 9th-level range (I handed out 200K experience, modified by prime requisite), and I ran them through a hastily thrown-together dungeon. And it was a blast. The energy level was incredible throughout, the action was fast and furious, and everybody was clearly having a great time. By the end of the game, the entire party had been wiped out except for the magic-user, who used magic jar to take over the body of a fire giant and eked out a victory in the final boss fight by the skin of his teeth... but I didn't hear anyone complaining.

Afterward, I took a while to think about what had made the game so exciting. While there was certainly some nostalgia value for me, the same was not true for anybody else. Yet everyone seemed to be as much into it as I was; indeed, one of the players who had come to D&D by way of 3.5E said he liked Classic better.

Here are some of the things that struck me about playing Classic:

#1: Virtually no arithmetic. The only addition involved was in damage rolls, and not a lot even there. Everything else was just "roll the die and compare to a number." Saving throws, attack rolls (consulting a chart), the thief's special abilities--all just number comparison. You wouldn't think it would make that much of a difference, but it does. Even the most basic math requires pulling your attention off the game for a second or two, and those seconds add up to a substantial energy drain.

#2: Ruleset limited in scope, but within that scope, very decisive. There's no waffling in Classic. Either the rules say what happens in a given situation, or they don't. If they do, they're up-front about it, without a lot of obscure corner cases tucked away in weird places. If they don't, the DM wings it; and since the system makes no bones about requiring the DM to wing it, there's no flipping through the book trying to figure out if the rules cover this or not. Just make a decision on the fly and keep right on going.

#3: Related to #2, character actions less restricted by rules. This is more a psychological issue than a mechanical one, but... in 3.5E, the rules try to cover every eventuality. As a result, people get used to operating within the framework of what the rules allow, and they tend to think about their actions in mechanical terms rather than in game-world terms. In Classic, that's not the case--there's so much stuff the rules just don't cover that you have to go beyond them, and that gets players thinking more about what's actually going on.

#4: Lack of finicky restrictions. This was particularly noticeable with the magic-user, whose spells were mind-blowingly free of limitations by 3.5E standards. Obviously, this had its down side--the M-U totally dominated the session, racking up a spectacular kill count against a horde of troglodytes, then winning the final fight thanks to his possessed body's innate fire immunity. But I was struck by the... well, for lack of a better word, the "gung-ho-ness" of the spell list. The designers were obviously looking to make the spells do Cool Stuff, to be exciting and fun to use. By comparison, 3.5E spells feel like they were written by accountants and tax lawyers.

#5: No maps, no minis, no battlemat. Our group has gotten into the habit of using minis and battlemats for 3.5E, but we played Classic without, and it really punched up the energy level. There wasn't any mapping either.

#6: No iterative attacks. 'Nuff said.

#7: Overall speed. Thanks to all of the above, we blew through an astonishing number of combats at a very rapid clip. The dungeon involved the following:

Three ogre sentries at the entrance.
A collapsing ledge and a souped-up crab spider that ambushed the fighter immediately afterward.
Half a dozen troglodytes.
Fifty regular troglodytes, a trog priest, a trog war-leader, and their bone golem god.
Another ogre sentry.
A barracks with a dozen sleeping ogres in it.
A fire giant.
A red dragon.

And we played out every one of those battles in the span of about three hours. (Admittedly, the fire giant fight ended very quickly when the M-U cast magic jar and the giant failed his save.) A similar 3.5E adventure would have taken quite a bit longer.

For all its considerable flaws... there's life in the old edition yet.

Here's to Gygax, wherever he may be.

 

[nedjer]

I think the quote in my sig states Gary's, and TSR's, position pretty clearly.

Absolutely

 

[vegaserik01]

I find myself going back and forth between the options of the newer editions and the simplicity of the older editions. I like Basic Fantasy with the more modern ac rule, and I think the 4E Essentials rules would be the best except I really dislike having to have battle maps, and the speed of combat. I love BD&D combat speed.

I think I need to combine Essentials and Basic Fantasy, I like the defenses in 4e rather then save throws in bd&d, and the skill system in 4e is rather simple. Both of these should be easy enough to port over into a basic system like Basic Fantasy.

 

[Shazman]

I think it really boils down to 4E is a decent tactical miniatures wargame but a pretty lousy RPG. If you have a good RPG session with 4E, it will be in spite of the system, not because of it. 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder can be a good RPG, a decent wargame, or a good mix of both depending on what aspects of it your group emphasizes.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

I'm trying to type carefully because I don't want to accidentally offend anyone or have anyone take anything personally. Actually I've just erased the entire comment box several times so I'll maybe just give up.

I have a hard time believing these stories because they are so far outside my personal experiences.

I've introduced many people to 4E, and several to their first role-playing and D&D experiences.

I've never had a problem with combat taking too long in 4E.

Taking too long between turns with only 4 players just boggles my mind.

I'll stop here.

I need to find and play in a group like this for personal edification.