Rant on d20

[Heap Thaumaturgist]

I think the intelligent and long-term gamers tend to get into this stretch every once in a while.

"I love the game, but I hate everything about it."

But really, in so many ways, it couldn't be what it is without being "what it is". If HERO or GURPS or FUDGE or Amber or WW or theWindow or Plainlabel or Fuzion were so much better than D&D they'd be outselling it.

And yes, brand recognition has alot to do with it, but that's one of those love/hate parts of the game because without brand recognition you have diddly-point-squat.

Hit Points are a simple, linear system that represent how hard your character is to kill. Because people like rewards within game environments, hit points increase to represent that their character has become more powerful in way of his reward for valor and wit, and in turn he may face more danger and combat to recieve still-greater rewards.

If everyone were a great bleeding-heart master of characterization and role then we'd all be master novelists. Unfortunately, alot of people I've met just ain't up to the task. They like RPGs because they can get into the "game" and "do" something ... something, at least, that doesn't take all week to resolve just so they can be secure that, indeedy-o-indeedy the sword they got hit with did damage that is representative of dishing out the sort of wounds as might have been suffered by people actually being hit with that kind of sword.

It doesn't mean they don't like role-playing. They just like rewards and resolution. They get in a fight with evil, and if they're strong enough and lucky enough, they conquer evil and get the goods and the girl and then go home because they have to be up for work on Monday.

Classes help with this ability to play "the game". You learn what "A Ranger" does and how he'll improve and you say: "I want that." as opposed to cobbling together your own archetype over the course of seven hours. Teaching a "free form" character system to a newbie is a roaring pain in the kiester, too. I can explain classes in about ten minutes, but saying: "You can be anything you want" and then spending five hours carefully weighing decisions on how to get there and explaining why this benifit does this and that disad does this and how many points you'll need in this to be what you want ... oi vey. And if somebody knows this free form system ... well, then for some reason you always get minmaxed death machine characters because, when it gets down to it, it's a game where the player wants a little conflict, a little resolution, some rewards, and then to go home at the end of the night. So why not save yourself a bit of the hassle and say: "Be one of these perfectly servicable archetypes, and hey, you can customize them while we go along, but at least we're all starting on the same page."

Most of the things people complain about in relation to D&D are perfectly servicable concepts that they don't seem to think go "quite far enough" ... but really that's because we know the concepts like the back of our hands, isn't it? What about the newbie that sits down and gets presented with skill checks with ten different shades of Hit Or Miss? Who gets pages and pages and books and books of advants, disads, powers, skills, and abilities just to start off? Who has to figure out hit locations and trauma and watch the character he nursed through five months of gaming get cut down from behind by an orc with a sword and a lucky crit head shot called blow with "grotesque maiming insta-kill" rolled on chart 45A-sub-D? Who has to put up with figuring out how badly damaged his left gauntlet is and whether or not it'll protect his hand from a maiming crit off of 45A-sub-A?

And while I really do agree with one rant, that of deflective AC ... it's there, it works, it's simple and so basic a concept that the rest of the game is pretty much built up around it. Invariably if people move to a damage-reduction system they either want to make armor worse than worthless or belabor the whole thing till nobody wants to play it anymore. That and to get a scaling system that works with the D&D ideal of increasing rewards you'll eventually get armor that blocks damage in the hundreds of points making for a whole lot of math: "But dude, my armor, like, totally blocks 198 points of damage of the 214 and even then I still have 78 HP left." "The orc hits ... and does 16 points." works just as well for me, most of the time.

Items go back to that idea of playing for increasing rewards. Sure, it sort of eliminates hanging on to dad's enchanted sword for eternity but the grand majority of weekend warriors aren't going to get all misty eyed over their father's masterwork sword and how valiantly he died and how his noble retainer fought through crippling wounds to struggle into the gypsy camp and gasp with his dying words to bring the sword to the only son and heir. They want to know if that magic sword in the dragon's hoard can kick more keister and take more names than the one they picked off the dead merc they'd been chasing for three months. Doesn't mean their character is less a character or has less heart ... just means that when they go home that night, they want to have something new and cool to think about. And if that's how the majority of people are going to play, then the game has to be scaled around it or the boards will be full of posts like: "DUDE, my players are totally ravaging my game world. I accidentally gave them a sword better than the one they'd had for six months and now they're laying waste to everything. Help!"

And, back to the game balance thing ... yea, you guessed it. It's about being a game. Sure, in 2nd Ed I had the exact same thing ... all my players played humans, I had two elves, and neither of them so much remembered the advants as wanted to play somebody with pointy ears. But it didn't mean that playing a human didn't seem sort of like getting gipped. "Why should I get screwed for wanting to play somebody with round ears?" This way you -can- start off as anything without totally terrorizing the rest of the party. Sure, you CAN have a race that gives bonuses without penalties, because, hey, it's a great race to role play with and it sure does need those nifty things without thinking up pesky disads ... but what if Weekend Warrior Joe is a little more concerned with kicking monster keister and less concerned with how the +4 To All Attributes race is supposed to be totally obsessed with centering themselves and becoming one with the butterfly god? Well Weekend Warrior Joe then kicks more Monster Keister than the other Weekend Warriors and they get cheesed off and DM Bob has to come to the message board and say: "DUDE, I accidentally let this guy in my game play this race and he's totally ravaging my game world and cheesing off my other players!"

In the end, its just a game. And alot of the sacred cows of D&D are things that allow it to be just a game ... a game you can play on weekends, and a game where you can go home feeling like you did something because you kicked some monster keister and got some cool loot ... and it doesn't mean you couldn't have lots of fun roleplaying that one encounter with the bartender that was such a total jerk, and had that eye that kept staring off into space, and your character would have so busted him in the face if it weren't for his god frowning on that sort of thing ...

I like 3E because the first game I played with it I had a newbie, and I had a whole group up and running within 30 minutes, new rules and new guy and all. And even with all the "flaws" and even with monster keister and cool loot, the new guy said: "I never thought it would be fun like that. I mean, I could SEE the necromancer standing there holding the book and I just had to go for it. I mean, I didn't know what was out that window, but I had to get it, so I did ... And man, that sword I found was sweet too." And sure, you could do that with any system, but I probably not getting the guy in with "what's this D&D thing", not teaching him in 30 minutes, and not resolving combat simply enough for a newbie and fast enough for the role-players to get back to the story ... and not with the same feeling and the same monster kiester and cool loot we've all grown up with and come to love.

--HT

Sorry for the length, but this is what you get when I've been struggling with a single page of text for six days and am up at 2am wondering why I care enough to keep working at it.

 

[LostSoul]

One of my issues with D&D is that it isn't a generic fantasy role-playing game. It's a D&D role-playing game.

 

[Zappo]

One of my issues with D&D is that it isn't a generic fantasy role-playing game. It's a D&D role-playing game.

That's true. But hey, it does D&D very well. What more could you want?

 

[Yuan-Ti]

Uhm I think Scarred Lands is the best d20 setting out there...Alternity was quite frankly...boring. I hate space. Space is waste. That's why there's so much of it and why infinity is just boring. It goes on, and on, and on, and on... I'm supposed to be happy with just THAT?!

I don't think he meant the setting StarDrive, Nightfall. He meant that Alternity is the best game system of all time. He could be right, though I am fairly convinced there are a number of very good systems out there that are the best systems for different jobs. Alternity is very flexible, though. Sure, it was designed to play modern to scifi games, but some people have used it for fantasy as well. (In fact, someone recently posted a D&D 3e conversion to Alternity at www.alternity.net )

vturlough: I agree with much of what you say. D&D is far from perfect for many people. As you say, though, it is fun and it works.

 

[Ashtal]

I always find it funny when we see posts detailing all the things that are horribly wrong with D&D. So much energy to tell people, particuarly on a site that is focused on the game, what a terrible thing it is. You say you like it ... well, it doesn't sound like it. You take issue (albeit politely I suppose) with almost all the major features of the game. Heck, I wouldn't even call it 'simple' - there are simpler games out there, but those things that do make it easy to get, classes, levels, game balance are, I believe, what *does* make the game accessable to more people than other games are.

Very simply, take those things away and you don't have D&D anymore. Which is fine - there are plenty of other games out there that you'll probably like much better. I can't imagine sticking to a game that you say drives you to frequent bouts of screaming for 'what could have been'. What could have been? How could it have been anymore successful than it is as it is right now?

 

[rounser]

I always find it funny when we see posts detailing all the things that are horribly wrong with D&D. So much energy to tell people, particuarly on a site that is focused on the game, what a terrible thing it is. You say you like it ... well, it doesn't sound like it. You take issue (albeit politely I suppose) with almost all the major features of the game. Heck, I wouldn't even call it 'simple' - there are simpler games out there, but those things that do make it easy to get, classes, levels, game balance are, I believe, what *does* make the game accessable to more people than other games are.

While I think you have a point, I also think that to a lot of people, D&D is viewed in a similar way to democracy, or a much-loved partner or family member: there are clearly flaws and things you'd like to change about it, but you guess that the alternatives are probably worse (or you're comfortable and secure with what you know), and you know that the changes would probably ruin it's strong points. Even then, I think that sometimes this doesn't stop the bitching about perceived weaknesses, even if they're minor.

The rules for 3E are printed, and therefore not negotiable beyond houseruling or errata. However, this is a discussion board, where people can air frustrations with the game, and perhaps even resolve them, somehow. Wizards have also implied that they're keeping a lookout for people's concerns regarding D&D, and so who knows, if enough people agree, a concern may even be addressed in 4E.

Thirdly, I think that people (including myself) can take for granted what they've got. Familiarity breeds contempt, and there's an innate urge to shake up the status quo once it gets old or loses novelty. An example of the result of which was pointed out in another thread - the class archetypes seeming restrictive, and that being explained as probably because we're used to them. Perhaps to balance this, maybe it is worth asking questions like, "If I got rid of this emphasis on items for these reasons, would I miss it after it's gone? What does it add to the game which I'm ignoring whilst I pan what I think it takes away from the game?" When trying to justify the quashing of an annoying part of the game, I suppose that it's easy to ignore what that part actually adds to the game (but you've taken for granted) when engaged in the crusade to unjustify it's existence.

Having said that, I should probably take my own advice on that point. I'm sometimes sensitive to what I perceive as the losses involved in stylistic changes in the game since prior editions, and am perhaps somewhat blind to the good things that have been added in their place. It is human nature to notice and point out the negative more than the positive, methinks.

(I still don't like the choices involved in the contents of the 3E Monster Manual very much, though - even if they are selected to fit gameplay niches...thanks for the CC and upcoming ToH, Grazzt!)

But I see your point, Ashtal - complaints about the game can reach a critical mass whereby you have to ask, "Why are you playing it then?"

 

[Ashtal]

But I see your point, Ashtal - complaints about the game can reach a critical mass whereby you have to ask, "Why are you playing it then?"

Exactly. When it comes to a point where over 50% of the system makes your eyes bleed, then there really isn't any point sticking with it.

Why? Because you will be participating in an activity that you fundamentally don't enjoy, isn't going to get better, and will continue to tax your energy.

Granted, there *is* more flexibility with D&D than ever before, and I think it's unfair to complain about a system that, as the OGL marches on, proves to be rather flexible in what it will and won't do, going so far as even classless.

It's your game, no one elses. Remove or change what isn't working, or move on to something that does. Doing anything else is a waste of time, both your's (in the general, non-specific reader sense) and other people's (other players, other posters).

 

[Psion]

vturlough,

You aren't enlightening anyone here, and arguments to this effect have been so thoroughly hashed over here that they have become tiresome.

I so want to debunk this post. But it occurs to me that most of the points I would make have been nicely summed up here:

http://www.montecook.com/arch_lineos46.html

In essence, if D&D didn't have the qualities you deride, it would not be as good as it is. It wouldn't be D&D. It would be runequest or warhammer, and you see how the sales compare. And as Monte says, it's not just primacy.

I house ruled the heck out of previous editions of the game. I am glad to say that with this edition of the game, I have but a fraction of the house rules I used to have... and many of the house rules are campaign adaptations. I still have rules to make more realistic consequences of wounds, but that is about my most major alteration. And that is largely a taste thing.

D&D is full of mechanics that don't seem to work at a glance, but where the rubber meets the road (or rather, where the dice meet the table), those factors are what makes the game work. D&D may not be the best of all possible systems. But it is certainly in the top quartile.

That said, I do share concerns for DDG and ELH. And I do share a fondness for the Alternity game. Not enough to call it the best game ever written. But enough that when people talk about d20 conversions of Alternity setting to make me shake my head and ask "why?"

(Edited for niceness per Yuan-ti. )

 

[Psion]

Uhm I think Scarred Lands is the best d20 setting out there...Alternity was quite frankly...boring.

Alternity rocked!

I hate space.

So do you hate Alternity or just space SF? To each their own, I guess. I find that space based settings are very liberating, as they give you room to create without hemming yourself in. You can make thousands of worlds.

By no small coincidence, I find the Dragonstar setting very intriguing.

FWIW, Alternity is made for more than just space SF settings... you can do cyberpunk and technothriller type things, and it has the x-files-ish Dark*Matter setting.

Space is waste. That's why there's so much of it and why infinity is just boring.

An infinity full of worlds and adventure is anything but boring.

 

[Yuan-Ti]

Oooh, look, a n00b has come to save us from our ignorance!

Psion, I already mentioned in another thread that I hate that term "n00b" because its only purpose is to close off debate about something by belittling your opponent. It's called an ad hominem attack because you are attacking your opponent instead of his ideas.

But since you like Alternity, I will forgive you.