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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6127820" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I don't know the Mentzer box but Moldvay Basic has the same dragon-slaying heroic stuff that the game can't really deliver.</p><p></p><p>Whatever the overall cultural shifts may have been, I'm a little sceptical of the idea that they explain some dramatic shift in RPG expectations. Fishing, or learning to play a musical instrument, may be hobbies that require discipline relative to reward. But I personally find imposing that model onto classsic dungeon crawling doesn't really work - unlike musicianship, the "discipline" of playing your first level PCs until one makes it to 3rd level and survivability isn't actually cultivating any talent or teaching you anything of independent value. (Of course, if you find this sort of play <em>intrinsically</em> enjoyable then go for it! But I don't accept that enjoying lethal dungeon crawling is a sign of some greater moral character.)</p><p></p><p>I agree it lacks that concept. As you know, for me that's not such a big deal - and the scaling rules make it easy to adjust one's planned stuff pretty easily if necessary.</p><p></p><p>I agree with this too.</p><p></p><p>I'm also interested in the notion of "winnable". In classic (Gygaxian) D&D, "winnable" means "able to extract the loot". In 3E presumably it means "able to kill the monsters". In Burning Wheel, "winnable" means something like "contains room for failing forward" - ie non-fatal to the PC.</p><p></p><p>Because D&D traditionally has no end-point for combat other than <em>death</em>, it puts especial pressure on the notion of "winnable" encounters. This is also complicated by the absence in 3E and 2nd ed AD&D (as best I know) of evasion rules - whereas these are fairly prominent in classic D&D, and can be handled in 4e as a skill challenge (although you have to wait for DMG 2, I think, to see this expressly flagged).</p><p></p><p></p><p>I ran an encounter with a 15th(? - memory a bit hazy) level solo wizard against 12th or so level PCs in my 4e game. I narrated his high hit points as skill with his staff (having the LotR movies in mind), deflection magic, etc. And as a Vecna-cultist I gave him a way to steal the secrets of the PC's encounter powers to gain action points, which he could then use to cancel debuffs. Plus he could blind at-will, or close to it - the PCs ended up using their wish ring to wish that no one in the keep in which the were fighting could be blinded for the next hour, which depowered the wizard quite a bit and let them win the fight.</p><p></p><p>(The wish ring was a non-DDI item that they didn't object to writing down and tracking manually.)</p><p></p><p>Had the wizard won, he would have taken them prisoner (4e makes this easy with it's flexible rules for what 0 hp means), triggering a Conan-style "escape from the wizard's dungeon" scenario.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6127820, member: 42582"] I don't know the Mentzer box but Moldvay Basic has the same dragon-slaying heroic stuff that the game can't really deliver. Whatever the overall cultural shifts may have been, I'm a little sceptical of the idea that they explain some dramatic shift in RPG expectations. Fishing, or learning to play a musical instrument, may be hobbies that require discipline relative to reward. But I personally find imposing that model onto classsic dungeon crawling doesn't really work - unlike musicianship, the "discipline" of playing your first level PCs until one makes it to 3rd level and survivability isn't actually cultivating any talent or teaching you anything of independent value. (Of course, if you find this sort of play [I]intrinsically[/I] enjoyable then go for it! But I don't accept that enjoying lethal dungeon crawling is a sign of some greater moral character.) I agree it lacks that concept. As you know, for me that's not such a big deal - and the scaling rules make it easy to adjust one's planned stuff pretty easily if necessary. I agree with this too. I'm also interested in the notion of "winnable". In classic (Gygaxian) D&D, "winnable" means "able to extract the loot". In 3E presumably it means "able to kill the monsters". In Burning Wheel, "winnable" means something like "contains room for failing forward" - ie non-fatal to the PC. Because D&D traditionally has no end-point for combat other than [I]death[/I], it puts especial pressure on the notion of "winnable" encounters. This is also complicated by the absence in 3E and 2nd ed AD&D (as best I know) of evasion rules - whereas these are fairly prominent in classic D&D, and can be handled in 4e as a skill challenge (although you have to wait for DMG 2, I think, to see this expressly flagged). I ran an encounter with a 15th(? - memory a bit hazy) level solo wizard against 12th or so level PCs in my 4e game. I narrated his high hit points as skill with his staff (having the LotR movies in mind), deflection magic, etc. And as a Vecna-cultist I gave him a way to steal the secrets of the PC's encounter powers to gain action points, which he could then use to cancel debuffs. Plus he could blind at-will, or close to it - the PCs ended up using their wish ring to wish that no one in the keep in which the were fighting could be blinded for the next hour, which depowered the wizard quite a bit and let them win the fight. (The wish ring was a non-DDI item that they didn't object to writing down and tracking manually.) Had the wizard won, he would have taken them prisoner (4e makes this easy with it's flexible rules for what 0 hp means), triggering a Conan-style "escape from the wizard's dungeon" scenario. [/QUOTE]
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