Should D&D be a "Living Game"?

[shadow]

With the release of 3.5e, WotC talked a lot about how they saw D&D as a "living game", that is a game that changes over time. This means that from player feedback, the game will constantly be revised, however the this may mean that a new edition will be released every few years. The question I have is should D&D (or RPGs in general) be considered a "living game"? On one hand, many hard core fans argue that constant revision helps meet player demands, and that rules that are "broken" are (hopefully) fixed in the next revision. However, many players (myself included) worry that the "living game" mentality will mean that a new edition every few years will invalidate their older books and force players to "upgrade" or be left behind. (The Games Workshop syndrome.) So the question for you all is, should D&D be a "living game"? Why or why not?

 

[WizarDru]

Well, we already know Diaglo's answer to this question.

Seriously, though, the answer for me is Yes. Cultural tastes change, players look for more or different things out of a system, and better mechanics come along. AD&D was a cluttered mess that was top-heavy with inconsistent mechanics, tables and too few options for my tastes. 2e and it's lack of upgrading kept me from the hobby for years.

WotC has shown an appreciation for the fact that the rules need correcting and updating on occasion, but that invalidating old material potentially isolates some players. Further, there are still places like Dragonsfoot and Canonfire, where older edition material is still being produced. With 3.5, WotC has made a concerted effort to giving a relatively easy path of upgrading or simply converting your existing material as needed.

Ignoring the changes when using material from Dragon, Dungeon or 3rd party products is fairly trivial, IMHO. If WotC ever releases a version that forces me to upgrade or die, I'll do what I did when 2e came out....LEAVE.

AD&D stopped meeting my needs, so it went out the door, and GURPS game in. GURPS did well for many years, but 3E brought me back. And considering how many 2E and 3.0 games I see scheduled at Shorecon this weekend, I don't think it's going to be as much of a problem.

 

[Garmorn]

I think part of the living game concept is the d20 concept where other companies are producing addtional rules and approches. Eventual some of these will replace or modify the core books.

I will not mind a revision every 3 to 4 year, if they are as small or smaller the the 3.5 one was. To have something bigger would need a major reason like some one actualy being able to codify roleplaying blance or something of similar earth shacking event.

 

[Melkor]

WotC has shown an appreciation for the fact that the rules need correcting and updating on occasion, but that invalidating old material potentially isolates some players. Further, there are still places like Dragonsfoot and Canonfire, where older edition material is still being produced. With 3.5, WotC has made a concerted effort to giving a relatively easy path of upgrading or simply converting your existing material as needed.

While I agree 100% that D&D should be a "living" game, and I do not mind that a new edition would come out every 3 -4 years, I don't think that converting existing material is a 'relatively easy path'.

Take Oriental Adventures for example - and it was a complete pain.
In a nutshell, here is why:

1)I have to go through all of the classes and update skills & feats.
2)I have to go through and remove any spells from the Oriental Adventures Shaman, Shugenja, and Wu Jen spell lists that have been deleted from D&D by 3.5.
3) I have to go through and change the names of any spells on the same Shaman, Shugenja, and Wu Jen spell lists who have had name changes in 3.5 (and some of these name change are so trivial that it seems like the reason for the change was just to give people a headache - I know, I know - this wasn't the real reason, but I can't fathom the logic).
4) I have to go through every spell that were introduced in Oriental Adventures (and balanced to match spells in 3.0) and see if they are still balanced with 3.5 - A very labor intensive and subjective process, which in the end may or may not end up balanced.
5) I have to look at all of the NEW spells that were introduced by 3.5 and see if they should be added to the Oriental Adventure spell lists.
6) I have to change all of the weapons over to 3.5.
7) I have to change over any NPCs because the Classes they are built on have changed.
8) I have to convert over any monsters because the way monsters are 'built' (Skill Points and Feat acquisition) have changed, as well as the 'Monster Type' and Damage Reduction.

Do I really want to take the time to do that with the Book of Vile Darkness, Savage Species (Which is not only not 100% compatible with 3.5, but has some serious contradictions with the 3.5 MM), Arms & Equipment Guide, Class Splatbooks, and all my 3rd party stuff ?

Can you play an Oriental Adventures character straight out of 3.0 in a 3.5 game without taking the time to convert it ? Yes you can.
Will there be balance issues, and rules dilemnas that this causes in play ? You can almost be certain something will crop up.

That's why even though I like most of the changes in 3.5, I am really upset about the unecessary changes that cause backwards compatability issues. I think this tends to highlight what you said in regards to potentially isolating some players. I like several of the changes in 3.5....but some of Andy Collin's house rules seem ridiculous to me, and I don't want to take the time to convert all of my 3.0 stuff over.....I'm actually retro-fitting 3.5 to 3.0 instead.

I'm already looking forward to a 4.0 to fix what I think is broken with 3.5 - but unfortunately, I don't know how much 'listening' is going to be done by WoTC in regards to a new edition. Here's a quote off of the Wizards boards from Wiz-O-Sith, one of the Moderators:

"Look folks, I know some of you are angry, upset, feel cheated, what have you.... but you're not going to find an answer to that here. I'm sorry, but it's just not going to happen. Nobody who reads these forums has any say in the overall policy descisions of WotC/Hasbro. Not a one. Not the game designers, not the WizOs, Nobody in upper management reads these forums. Complaining about the descsion to revise D&D here is comperable to complaining to the cashier at McDonalds that their company uses primarily foreign beef raised in cleared rainforest - the little guys have no controll over those decisions."

So I guess we will wait and see how much of a 'living document' 4.0 is. I really hope it turns out to be better than 3.5.

In my humble opinion, and that's all it is - my opinion, they could start by bringing back the original design team (Monte, Skip, and Sean), and kicking Andy Collins to the curb so that he can start his own company, write house rules in his own "Alternate Player's Handbook", and leave his home game out of official D&D products that come out in the future.

/Rant off

 

[Wombat]

All rpgs are, IMO, "living games" in that every group runs their own game, modifies it over time to fit particular tastes, etc.

Now does D&D need to be an OFFICIAL "Living Game"? That is more of a bone of contention. I think it will be, just because you need to keep the company alive and if there are not updates to the game on a regular basis there is little or no product to sell, thus the game goes under. The question comes more to this point: how many of the official rules do you need? Are you content with your own "In House" variant? If so, you don't need more rules from WotC/Hasbro. If you like the shiny new product, then get it.

Here is some of my own perspective on that point: I started playing D&D back in 1976. I dropped out before D&D became AD&D because I thought the game had become rather silly. I played in a couple of short AD&D adventures in the intervening period, but I did not come back to D&D until D&D3e. I was quite content to play RuneQuest or Ars Magica in the non-D&D times. Now I am running D&D3e, heavily modified to fit my group. I feel no need or desire to go out and buy the 3.5 books; I have downloaded the Revised SRD, looked through it, took in a couple of changes, and otherwise ignored it.

Now that process works well for me and mine. There will be a different process for your group.

And that, my friends, is the core definition of a Living Game.

 

[Anubus]

I liked the revision thing, that makes sense and generally improves the game. The new version I have mixed feelings about. While I think that 3.5 is a much better system than 2 was, I'm not comfortable with the idea of version 4. I've spent so much on version 2, and now 3, especially 3 thanks to 3rd party publishers, that if D&D changed out right again, I don't think I'd be going with it. In fact I would make an effort to avoid seeing the 4 edition books in fear that I would like them, and actually consider switching.

On the other hand should WOTC make another revision, I'd most likely go for that. Sure its been a pain to switch things from 3 to 3.5, but for the most part changes are easy, like if you needed 5 ranks in wilderness lore before, now you need 5 ranks in survival, easy. I'm certainly alot more willing to go through this process again than I am willing to buy another system.

I often think of how I would like Hasbro to close down WOTC, not that I want those people to lose their jobs or anything, but as least as far as I'm concerned if there's no WOTC there will be no V4, which makes my wallet very happy. This is of course assuming that D&D doesn't get sold off to someone else, and Hasbro reserves the name for "Later" projects.

I generally feel that if WOTC did try to release V4 soon, that many of the 3rd party publishers would try and resist it, inorder to keep the 3/3.5 people happy. I'm not sure if WOTC would really be willing to risk splitting the market like that. So to me it seems to make more sense for them for just continue refining the current system.

Wow that's really long winded, sorry

So in summary, revisions good, new versions bad

 

[WizarDru]

Originally posted by Melkor
Do I really want to take the time to do that with the Book of Vile Darkness, Savage Species (Which is not only not 100% compatible with 3.5, but has some serious contradictions with the 3.5 MM), Arms & Equipment Guide, Class Splatbooks, and all my 3rd party stuff ?

These are legitimate points, and I certainly see your point. However, I'd also say that generally, you wouldn't be doing all of this in one fell swoop. The spell lists, probably, but the weapons really haven't changed that significantly between revisions, and your players only have a limited number of them.

Generally, you have three approaches: do just the ones you're currently using, do those and the ones you anticipate using, or do them all. Most folks will do the second, with an emphasis on the first. You're not going to go through and translate a CR 24 Li Lung Dragon unless you plan on using it in an adventure, for example, and many cretuares haven't changed that much from version to version.

We recently held a '3.5' night to convert a series of 20th level characters to 3.5. This included analyzing the number of magic items and changed costs, skill changes, prestige class changes and so forth. It wasn't as hard as we envisioned, truthfully.

Which is not to say that some translations won't be a pain in arse...just that they could be far, far worse.

 

[Melkor]

These are legitimate points, and I certainly see your point. However, I'd also say that generally, you wouldn't be doing all of this in one fell swoop. The spell lists, probably, but the weapons really haven't changed that significantly between revisions, and your players only have a limited number of them.

Actually, in converting the 3.0 Oriental Adventures weapon list over to 3.5, not much has really changed, but it still takes a while to convert (I zipped up a PDF and posted it in the Rules section).

Namely, you have to change the old categories (Small, Medium, Large) over to the new weapon types (Light, One Handed, Two Handed). You also have to add in a 'Dmg (S)' category for weapons wielded by small characters - which I did by using the 'damage step decrease' table out of Savage Species.

Again, it wasn't hard, but it did take a couple of hours - and weapons are MUCH easier to convert than spells.....

Generally, you have three approaches: do just the ones you're currently using, do those and the ones you anticipate using, or do them all. Most folks will do the second, with an emphasis on the first. You're not going to go through and translate a CR 24 Li Lung Dragon unless you plan on using it in an adventure, for example, and many cretuares haven't changed that much from version to version.

This is something that most people would be able to do and save time with, but the way I run games, I like to throw things in 'on the fly' - and sometimes that means that I have no idea what I'm going to spring on the characters (say as a random encounter), until I do it......On those occasions, I can see someone saying: "Just wing it, or use it as is in 3.0 - Your players will never know!" - but again, that's just not my style.

We recently held a '3.5' night to convert a series of 20th level characters to 3.5. This included analyzing the number of magic items and changed costs, skill changes, prestige class changes and so forth. It wasn't as hard as we envisioned, truthfully. Which is not to say that some translations won't be a pain in arse...just that they could be far, far worse.

I agree with you here. I worked on a few conversions and thought to myself: "Wow, this isn't that bad!", but then I started tackling Oriental Adventures with one of my players - and after a solid 5 hours of work, we've only finished weapons, 3 of the classes, and about half of the spell lists.....Once it's done, it's done, and hopefully, would not need to be done again.....

But that's just way too much time to make it worth it at this point....I have a set number of hours per week that I can 'play', and I'm just getting back into D&D after a year long hiatus.....So my time at this point has to be spent planning the campaign I am running.

In the end, it comes down to the fact that I am happy with a lot of the rule clarifications and fixes in 3.5 - but I think the uneeded changes, just for the sake of change, are very dissapointing.

Cheers.

 

[diaglo]

Well, we already know Diaglo's answer to this question.

stupid broken message board.

Original D&D(1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are poor imitations of the real thing.


my game is/was a living game. we roll(ed) with the punches and ha(d)ve fun. but we ke(pt)ep it in context.

 

[fusangite]

Well, I came back to D&D for about the same reason I came back to Microsoft products. I chose compatibility and support over actual quality. In many ways, 3E was the Windows 95 of D&D -- actually good enough at being a decent platform to be tolerable to people who were used to better. WOTC has the difficult task of maintaining some degree of backward compatibility while, at the same time producing a rational system -- in may view, they are doing an examplary job.

My hope is that D&D continues to evolve until it gradually shakes all of the ridiculous heritage encumbering it from those days in the 1970s when people were copying out Thesaurus entries to make classes. Eventually, I hope that WOTC will gradually be able to turn D&D into something that requires no element of nostalgia and backward compatibility to justify the system but instead, stands exclusively on its own merits. I'm very impressed by the rate at which they are already achieving that. My hope is that in 4E, the absurd damage system will be discarded in favour of one in which people can be injured by degrees and hit in locations. So, I hope D&D continues to evolve into something that an ex-Runequest player like me can not just tolerate but be truly proud of.