So what's gold gonna be for?

[Irda Ranger]

I feel that that works for the minimal political effects deriving from the power of HLCs in a butt-kicking campaign, but likely not for a deliberately political campgain... I'd like to be proven wrong, but it sounds unlikely :\

Be happy: you're wrong. Just sayin'. I'm in his group.

 

[Irda Ranger]

That's not a question of advancement speed. It's a question of why everyone isn't being an adventurer.

In the real world fully half of the population is smart enough to be a lawyer or doctor, but most people just don't go to law school. It's too hard. It's easier to just hold down your current job and play X-Box at night.

 

[gizmo33]

Okay, so how many hours of practice do you think you would need before you could swim around in a pool of lava?

I'm not sure, I don't usually watch the Olympics. Seriously though, I do think that if the analogy suits you for purposes of your argument, I can understand that but the very analogy misses one of the main reasons why I might disagree and that is because a 9th level character IMO has an essence to him that does not have a real world analogue. So what it means to be 9th level is then fundementally different for me than it is for you based on your willingness to use the analogy.

That's cool. I don't think it would be impossible to come up with some sort of compromise system. At the simplest I'll just do what I do now, hand out 50% of the recommended XP totals (or whatever the magic number winds up being). I'd also like the power curve to be less than in 3E, but I won't hold my breath for that one.

 

[gizmo33]

In the real world fully half of the population is smart enough to be a lawyer or doctor, but most people just don't go to law school. It's too hard. It's easier to just hold down your current job and play X-Box at night.

In the real world people also get killed for being adventurers. In fact the real world's DM is apparently an RBDM. There's no protests of "hey, this isn't a level appropriate encounter!" when the local natives are swarming down on you by the hundreds. And real world adventurers can't complain about "unfun" when they're getting exotic diseases, being tortured in ingenious ways, or being imprisoned for violating obscure laws or having a forged passport. Real world adventurers die from exposure, starvation, and a myriad of other "unheroic" misfortunes that have been sanitized from RPG rules. Give me X-Box any day.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Having had a further look at the 1e rules, they are actually insufficient to run a dominion (unlike BECMI or Birthright). There is nothing about earning money from your holding. There are no rules for mass battles (only for siege engines). There are no rules for the PCs as political movers and shakers - just a list of government types and titles. This is very much in contrast to a game like Pendragon, in which the PCs are expected to be knights and (as the game progresses) rulers. There is one single page about ruling a territory (DMG 93-4) which is all about getting rid of the monsters that already live there and how long it will take to civilize it.

 

[Doug McCrae]

So we're not sure what this game, Dungeons & Dragons, is all about. Romance and relationships? Power and politics? Murder mysteries?

Perhaps there's a clue in the name. Perhaps Dungeons & Dragons is about going into dungeons and killing the dragons that live there? Kind of a weird idea, I know, but I just throw it out as a suggestion.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

In the real world fully half of the population is smart enough to be a lawyer or doctor, but most people just don't go to law school. It's too hard. It's easier to just hold down your current job and play X-Box at night.

There's a pretty good answer. Being an adventurer is hard work, and it's easier to just make shoes.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

There's a pretty good answer. Being an adventurer is hard work, and it's easier to just make shoes.

Yup. I'm working on a Ph.D. now, and I wish I were making shoes. Or playing XBox. More specifically Halo 3. My students are playing Halo 3, and I hate them for it. Just sayin'.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Yup. I'm working on a Ph.D. now, and I wish I were making shoes. Or playing XBox. More specifically Halo 3. My students are playing Halo 3, and I hate them for it. Just sayin'.

I study song sparrows. I'd rather be playing D&D.

 

[gizmo33]

Having had a further look at the 1e rules, they are actually insufficient to run a dominion (unlike BECMI or Birthright).

I agree, more or less, that the detail isn't there.

There is nothing about earning money from your holding.

IIRC you can get that information from the character class descriptions in the PHB. Each character class earns a certain sp amount per inhabitant.

There are no rules for mass battles (only for siege engines).

Chainmail was the recommended mass-combat system in the old days. Battle System was the supplement for ADnD. Seems that Gary Gygax was running mass combat scenarios for his Greyhawk campaign in ADnD days (see Dragon Mag), although I suspect he was using Chainmail, I suspect that the rules weren't completely compatible with AdnD.

There are no rules for the PCs as political movers and shakers - just a list of government types and titles. This is very much in contrast to a game like Pendragon, in which the PCs are expected to be knights and (as the game progresses) rulers. There is one single page about ruling a territory (DMG 93-4) which is all about getting rid of the monsters that already live there and how long it will take to civilize it.

Gygax's comments about high level gaming, and the shared culture as reinforced by Dragon magazine et. al., made the concept of running a barony at 9th level a very familiar one to those of us who played ADnD. IMO you can't look at the rules and see this clearly.

There were no rules for PCs as political movers and shakers because those were situations that common sense and/or a healthy dose of familiarity with history and creativity was supposed to provide. Just as there were no rules per se on how to design an orcish society, and yet you could assume that many people's ADnD campaigns had orcish societies.

That being said, I think "Empire Building" scenarios, at best, were the province of old-old-school wargamers who played DnD and not the focus for those of us who were kids at the time and played ADnD for dungeon crawls. We were probably aware that the ideal was to make high level adventuring more about politics, but I don't think the practice was as frequently in line with this.