Searching for "New School" elements

[Raven Crowking]

As I understand it, under the Gygaxian/early D&D model, campaigns often involved multiple and fissiparious groups that all adventured in the same world, often in the same dungeons, with eventual solo play as a goal. Therefore, treasure left behind could be picked up, not only by the same group later, but by an entirely different set of players, or by a mixed group.

Other modes of gaming have more strongly identified the campaign with the group. Thus, as you point out, left-behind treasure is as good as lost unless the PCs make a point of coming back for it later.

Exactly.

The fantasy-world vs. fantasy-novel idea comes from Raven Crowking's Nest: I is for Iceberg…Some Further Thoughts

 

[Doug McCrae]

There is a difference between Gygaxian & WotC magic items for sale. As an easy example, take B2. There are a few items PCs can buy, but only a few. The PCs cannot simply order anything they want!

To be fair, 3e places limits on available magic items dependent on settlement size. They are listed in Table 5-2 on page 137 of the 3.5e DMG. For example a Hamlet (pop 81-400) won't sell anything, magical or non-magical that costs more than 100gp.

the "follow me" treasure in 4e.

3e has something like “follow me” treasure in that the DMG sets treasure awards to PC level and not on any other factor. At least by the game text, there is no concept of the deserving player getting more and the undeserving player getting less, as there is in 1e and earlier. (2e I'm not sure about.)

The PCs needn't have average treasure at every stage in their careers, but if an imbalance (either high or low) persists for more than a few levels, you should take gradual action to correct it by awarding slightly more or slightly less treasure.

- 3.5 DMG page 51

However, again as per the game text, choices and consequences are important -

Choices: A good adventure has at least a few points where the players need to make important decisions. What they decide should have significant impact on what happens next. A choice can be as simple as the players deciding not to go down the corridor to the left (where the pyrohydra waits for them) and instead going to the right (toward the magic fountain), or as complex as the PCs deciding not to help the queen against the grand vizier (so that she ends up being assassinated and the vizier’s puppet gains the throne).
Difficult Choices: When a choice has a significant consequence, it should sometimes be a difficult one to make. Should the PCs help the church of Heironeous wage war on the goblins, even though the conflict will almost certainly keep them from reaching the Fortress of Nast before the evil duke summons the slaadi assassins? Should the PCs trust the words of a dragon, or ignore her warning?

- 3.5 DMG pages 44-45

No matter what, all adventures should depend upon player choices, and players should feel as though what they choose to do matters. The results should affect the campaign setting (albeit perhaps in minor ways), and they should have consequences (good or bad) for the PCs.

- 3.5 DMG page 45

This seems rather contradictory – player choices can have good or bad consequences for the PCs and yet at the same time, the amount of treasure the PCs receive is basically fixed. I believe the answer to this contradiction is that the consequences will take other forms than the losing or gaining of treasure.

This has much bearing on Elf Witch's recent thread about the destruction of valuable animated skeletons, by one PC, against the wishes of the rest of the party. I believe that was a 3e game. According to the advice in the DMG, the GM should've made up for the loss of treasure later, assuming the PCs were below wealth by level guidelines. Ofc, I'm not saying that anyone should follow that advice, just that that is the advice.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Comparing 1e with 3e, which is to compare old school with new school, in the 1e DMG the one concept that comes across to me more strongly than any other is, "Don't make things easy for the players." And the single concept repeated more than any other in the 3e DMG's advice is, in my view, "verisimilitude". This makes sense. 1e is primarily gamist and 3e is primarily simulationist, as has been pointed out many times.

Occasionally Gary does talk about verisimilitude, for example the passage about climate and ecology in pages 87-88 of the 1e DMG. And most of 1e's rules are simulationist. 3e doesn't talk much, if at all, about challenging the players, afaics. Its gamism is to be found in system mastery. In the concept of the 'build'.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Comparing 1e with 3e, which is to compare old school with new school, in the 1e DMG the one concept that comes across to me more strongly than any other is, "Don't make things easy for the players." And the single concept repeated more than any other in the 3e DMG's advice is, in my view, "verisimilitude". This makes sense. 1e is primarily gamist and 3e is primarily simulationist, as has been pointed out many times.

Occasionally Gary does talk about verisimilitude, for example the passage about climate and ecology in pages 87-88 of the 1e DMG. And most of 1e's rules are simulationist. 3e doesn't talk much, if at all, about challenging the players, afaics. Its gamism is to be found in system mastery. In the concept of the 'build'.

Quite so. 1E and earlier were designed to provide a challenge to the players during actual play. 3E challenges the characters and thus the build design skills of the players.

 

[pemerton]

We're probably too negative about 2nd ed on ENworld, it gets shot at by both sides. Dragonlance, in particular. Someone should start a thread about the positives of high fantasy, epic quests and heroes who are real heroes.

I'm a regular sniper at 2nd ed, but not because of its links to high fantasy, epic quests and heroes who are real heroes.

My objection to 2nd ed is that the designers wanted to achieve those things but without the mechanics or guidelines to GM's to enable this to emerge out of player-driven play, and therefore substituted GM force (aka the golden rule by its friends, or railroading by its enemies) as the dominant action-resolution method.

it occurs to me when writing this that there is definite link between the placement of treasure in 1e, and the "follow me" treasure in 4e. In the 1e case, a great amount of treasure is placed that the PCs are not expected to find; this helps to ensure that the PCs will be able to locate and recover a reasonable level of reward. In 4e, "follow me" treasure performs the same function.

<snip>

With the AP set-up, what isn't used is wasted.

<snip>

thinking of this element of 4e in this way does give me a new appreciation of the thought put into that game's design.)

I don't want to get in between you and your newfound appreciation for 4e! And I'm sure you've heard this before in any event. But the most obvious design rationale for 4e treasure is that treasure is an element of character building rather than world building.

Which is an even more radical departure from AD&D traditions. (I think 3E found itself in a somewhat uncomfortable straddling of these two conceptions of treasure.)