Sacred cows: Where's the beef?

[Mercule]

Oh. I forgot....

Hand and Eye of Vecna, gauntlets of ogre power, and Deck of Many Things. The occasional item/site/encounter that will either wildly power-up your PC/party or totally screw you.

I'm suddenly sad about 4e. But I'm also realizing that, based on these criteria, 3e was trying very hard to not be D&D, either. It just had a higher Bluff.

 

[Remathilis]

No Dark Sun for you, then? On a strict reading, Dragonlance is also out, as it doesn't have orcs. (I forgot whether or not it has kobolds.)

Just curious if you really don't consider these settings D&D; Dragonlance was the first D&D setting I encountered and I've always liked Dark Sun.

Well...

There is a bit of room for fudging I guess, but I guess trying to define D&D is like trying to define coffee. We all agree it needs coffee beans and water, but from there we can't agree if its hot or cold, black or creamy, bitter or sweet, what kind(s) of beans, steamed milk or no, caramel, chocolate, vanilla, or peppermint flavored (for starters) and may or may-not have whipped cream in it. They flavor the coffee, enhance the experience, and can even be done without (and not destroy the essence) but we can all agree a cup of Folger's Instant is not a Caramel Macchiato, but still is coffee. Greyhawk is not Dark Sun, but its still D&D.

For the record; I thought Dark Sun was an amazing game, but it cleaved so far from D&D norms, you could argue it was the original "d20 variant" game, more at home with Midnight than Eberron. Dragonlance was really core D&D with some elements (kender for halflings, draconians for orcs) re-skinned. Ravenloft varied between how close it hewed to D&D norms (sometimes too close, other times not close enough), Planescape was D&D ramped to 11, and Greyhawk/Realm/Eberron/Mystara were just name-changes on the baseline assumptions. (Though Eberron gets props for its unique take on magic, its still a traditional D&D world).

 

[Darkness]

Hm, that's a very good post. Thanks for sharing, Remathilis.

 

[Staffan]

Not sure what systems you tried, but quite a few other RPGs have classes in all but name. If you meant classes and levels, OTOH, I can't think of many either.

Rolemaster has classes and levels, but I think it started as a set of very extensive house rules for D&D, so that makes sense.

Earthdawn was written from scratch, on the other hand, and also has classes and levels. It works a little differently from D&D though. Your class gives you access to certain Talents (magic-powered skills), which you increase with XP. When you have increased enough talents to a high enough level, you are eligible to gain a new level. The main advantage of that new level is access to two or three new talents.

So instead of XP -> Level -> Badass, it's XP -> Badass -> Level.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

It's all about the abbr.

D&D =

EXP, STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CHA, GP, AC, HP, Ftr1, Wiz20, B2...

and Magic Missiles.


and chits (or dice, your choice )

Mostly, as long as people are having fun and using their imaginations, I don't care what they call it.

 

[Desdichado]

There is a bit of room for fudging I guess, but I guess trying to define D&D is like trying to define coffee. We all agree it needs coffee beans and water, but from there we can't agree if its hot or cold, black or creamy, bitter or sweet, what kind(s) of beans, steamed milk or no, caramel, chocolate, vanilla, or peppermint flavored (for starters) and may or may-not have whipped cream in it. They flavor the coffee, enhance the experience, and can even be done without (and not destroy the essence) but we can all agree a cup of Folger's Instant is not a Caramel Macchiato, but still is coffee. Greyhawk is not Dark Sun, but its still D&D.

Not to nitpick your metaphor, but I don't think anyone is saying that any of those variants aren't coffee; they're just saying that's not the kind they like. To put it back in metaphorical terms, there's a fair number of folks who basically say that once you add cream, it's not coffee anymore when it comes to D&D.

 

[Remathilis]

Not to nitpick your metaphor, but I don't think anyone is saying that any of those variants aren't coffee; they're just saying that's not the kind they like. To put it back in metaphorical terms, there's a fair number of folks who basically say that once you add cream, it's not coffee anymore when it comes to D&D.

Going back to Darkness's post (which he calls out elements I thought were D&D that didn't exist in some D&D variants) my metaphor is apt; D&D is a brand name that can host a surprising number of tweaks and variants under its banner, but if you walk into a diner and order a "coffee" you're expecting a cup of normal, black coffee and some cream and sugar packets. Your not expecting a double mocha latte, even though its just as much "coffee" as normal joe. Similarly, if someone invites me over to play D&D, I expect that list to be assumed, not Dark Sun-style tweak. If someone says they're playing Dark Sun, I don't expect all of those assumptions to be viable.

All those things are D&D, but D&D is not all those things.

As to your version of the metaphor, I agree not everyone drinks their coffee the same (I prefer double cream, no sugar thank you). However, if you and I order coffee and you dump two sugars and no cream and I do two cream no sugar, we may not LIKE the way the other drinks their coffee, but it doesn't make it less "coffee" to the other. Putting lemon, honey, and milk into your coffee doesn't make it tea. Similarly, I might run a high-magic game set in Eberron with warforged psions and you might run a low-magic game set on Greyhawk (and lack a proper caster!) but we're still playing D&D, neither changed the game sufficiently to make it Palladium Fantasy (shudder).

 

[darkseraphim]

Three elements - Greyhawk, Gygax, and a DM that refuses to be bullied by players who are afraid to have their characters face actual death.

I'm a grognard in that sense - that's where my fondest memories are, and you can't compete with nostalgia if the nostalgia is entrenched in the people, places, music and technology (no Internet) of that time in life.

That being said, I'm all for LotR, Warcraft, Call of Cthulhu, Final Fantasy, RPG Maker, Harn and RuneQuest. I love fantasy games and play them avidly. But if it's going to be a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, that's where I stand.

 

[justanobody]

Save My Game: Let Players Manage Themselves, Part 3

I had a conversation with a friend a few weeks back about the fact that in my game, the entire party gets the same amount of experience points. When a character dies and the player brings in a new character, he or she comes in with the same experience as the rest of the party. He saw that as fundamentally unfair -- after all, didn't the player whose character died lose in some way? Wasn't I saying that everyone accomplished the same amount of victories even if a player didn't show up for that week? Shouldn't I "punish" those who didn't show up or who let their character's die?

No. Frankly, that's just dunderheaded.

All right, maybe dunderheaded isn't fair. I mean, I'm talking about fairness here (I told you that I don't always entirely succeed at my own principles). But hear me out. D&D is not about winning and losing. It's about storytelling and high adventure with high risk and reward. It's about getting together with your buddies and having a good time. If someone misses a game because they have to visit the in-laws, isn't that punishment enough? They missed out on fun that weekend! I've found that over the years, a character death is dramatic enough. There's no reason to punish the entire group by making that player fall permanently behind the rest of the group's advancement. It's not as if you are going to have a make-up game, right? After all, if that character is less effective, it not only diminishes the fun for that player, it diminishes the effectiveness of the entire group.

This is where it stops being D&D. When you no longer have individuals making up a group, but just a group. It isn't about competition to get the most XP and leave someone behind in the group, but I don't want to be doing everything to carry the entire group or carry a player that rarely shows up.

The XP wouldn't be rewarded to a perpetual absentee player because they would be removed from the group.

The encounter budget system allows for scaling encounters up or down so that if a character is a little behind it shouldn't hurt the group overall if the encounters are designed properly for the group you have, rather than the norm the encounter design system expects.

You have 4 people working their but off for a few hours, should a 5th person who didn't come into work get paid as well?

everyone plays to have fun with each other yes, and you don't want to grind the game to a halt because of it, but when you take away individual goals, or treat individual actions as nothing more than a cog in a larger machine you end up with dissent and people NOT having fun.

It is when you find the XP ranges that differe so much that you can take the time to work as a group and figure out what is going on and why XP is weighing more for some and less for others and help them build their strengths as players.

If you just want storytelling for adventure and rewards of some sort then V:tM LARP can offer that to you. I don't really care for LARPing myself.

So add to the list individual rewards in the form of XP that allows for personal growth during the game as what helps make D&D D&D. Otheriwse you should just have a group XP that keeps everyone at the same level, or remove XP for "milestones" that after X encounters everyone gets another level, and you don't need the minutia of XP at all.

you can go one step further towards this group dynamic by removing individual characters and have the group of players then work by committee to decide what the entirety of the group is going to do and no be bothered with individuals missing or lagging behind, because a player missing would not make the committee not be able to play and all characters would be present if/when the DM is.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

So add to the list individual rewards in the form of XP that allows for personal growth during the game as what helps make D&D D&D. Otheriwse you should just have a group XP that keeps everyone at the same level, or remove XP for "milestones" that after X encounters everyone gets another level, and you don't need the minutia of XP at all..

Actually that is what I do, we have Major Milestones and Minor Milestones in our game.

A Major Milestone is a extremely significant event in a characters life and this experience has enabled him to delve into oneself and really grasp what has gone on and the experiences he has felt. He goes up one level in doing so.

A Minor Milestone is a less important, but still important event that symbolizes the challenges and hardships they have faced up to this point in time, it is the accumulation of what that character/group has experienced. They have a number of XP given based on what they have done since the last Minor or Major Milestone.

This way it isn't about simply the gathering of XP to get to the next level. XP is now another reward/indication of delving deep into eachothers character concepts and where they are going in the story, and the grander scheme of the story as well.

I find it quite helps in making each person's character stand out as something that is important to that character becomes highlighted. It also makes the group seem less like a grinding XP machine and more individual characters with individual goals and desires.