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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8309109" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>I'm not so sure... Look at 2e. The rules are BASICALLY the same as 1e (sans a few fairly superficial tweaks). The only real addition to the mechanics is NWPs, but they are thoroughly optional (admittedly less so if you start folding in supplements and using a lot of kits). Really the main thing that 2e does is remove most of the exploration rules! Instead they replaced XP for GP with XP for 'doing something in character' (but the amounts are likely MUCH less than what GP got you in 1e). The other main rule is they did away with GP value of magic items, and wrote a long and complicated novella about how to create a magic item as a PC which amounts to "whatever the GM says, and make it basically impossible." Beyond that there's just advice to 'fudge things as needed to make a story work' and that's it!</p><p></p><p>This does NOT lead to the kind of coherency I'm talking about. It is simply a recipe that says 'railroad the PCs with GM force to stick to your defined plot'. I guess that could be considered a process! The actual mechanics of 2e don't easily PRODUCE story though. They are fraught with the sorts of things that were invented for GSP. Poisons instantly kill you, unless you save. Low level characters are unlikely to survive even one hit from a monster in combat. Treasure and magic items are largely relegated to being random 'treasure drops' and random wandering monsters are a common occurrence. Nothing, except the awkward alignment rules, really provides any guidance on characterization, and those rules are only a stick, and one that is entirely both ambiguous and the complete purview of the GM! </p><p></p><p>I do not believe anyone designed 2e with an overall vision of what they were building in terms of a play process. They were told to make a game that would be 1e rules-compatible at the module and PC character sheet level (which 2e largely is) and presumably would "add that newfangled story game thing that White Wolf is doing" or something like that! It is pea soup.</p><p></p><p>We also certainly differ on the "better off free of restrictions", because I don't think that interpreting something DW as a set of 'restrictions' even makes sense. I pushed back against that characterization up thread, and there was a reason! You can run any sort of narrative in DW, it will just pick up the PC's and their interests and character traits and make them a central aspect of the story. Believe me, you can run a dungeon delve in DW, it works great! You can run a court intrigue game too, and it is 900% better at that than 2e. The dungeon delve will focus on things like the hard choices the PCs need to make in order to grab the treasure (or maybe they don't, maybe they save their friends instead). The intrigue will force the PCs to make hard moral choices or something too. I admit, 2e might not do that, but I hardly call that 'freedom'. It is more 'put the burden on the players to figure out how to make that happen'. Even at a 'beer and pretzels' level they want SOME sort of fun character engagement.</p><p></p><p>Right, a lot of B/X (or other classic D&D) works pretty well as a package. It does a fairly niche sort of game really well, and then if you expand beyond that, hey that's your business! Mostly other stuff should wait to 6th or 7th level at least. I think that was sort of the GSP pattern. Players came in, they went through the wringer, eventually they came out the other side, and now they got to do the more wide-open heroic fantasy sort of stuff, if the GM was capable of running that in a non-hamfisted way.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8309109, member: 82106"] I'm not so sure... Look at 2e. The rules are BASICALLY the same as 1e (sans a few fairly superficial tweaks). The only real addition to the mechanics is NWPs, but they are thoroughly optional (admittedly less so if you start folding in supplements and using a lot of kits). Really the main thing that 2e does is remove most of the exploration rules! Instead they replaced XP for GP with XP for 'doing something in character' (but the amounts are likely MUCH less than what GP got you in 1e). The other main rule is they did away with GP value of magic items, and wrote a long and complicated novella about how to create a magic item as a PC which amounts to "whatever the GM says, and make it basically impossible." Beyond that there's just advice to 'fudge things as needed to make a story work' and that's it! This does NOT lead to the kind of coherency I'm talking about. It is simply a recipe that says 'railroad the PCs with GM force to stick to your defined plot'. I guess that could be considered a process! The actual mechanics of 2e don't easily PRODUCE story though. They are fraught with the sorts of things that were invented for GSP. Poisons instantly kill you, unless you save. Low level characters are unlikely to survive even one hit from a monster in combat. Treasure and magic items are largely relegated to being random 'treasure drops' and random wandering monsters are a common occurrence. Nothing, except the awkward alignment rules, really provides any guidance on characterization, and those rules are only a stick, and one that is entirely both ambiguous and the complete purview of the GM! I do not believe anyone designed 2e with an overall vision of what they were building in terms of a play process. They were told to make a game that would be 1e rules-compatible at the module and PC character sheet level (which 2e largely is) and presumably would "add that newfangled story game thing that White Wolf is doing" or something like that! It is pea soup. We also certainly differ on the "better off free of restrictions", because I don't think that interpreting something DW as a set of 'restrictions' even makes sense. I pushed back against that characterization up thread, and there was a reason! You can run any sort of narrative in DW, it will just pick up the PC's and their interests and character traits and make them a central aspect of the story. Believe me, you can run a dungeon delve in DW, it works great! You can run a court intrigue game too, and it is 900% better at that than 2e. The dungeon delve will focus on things like the hard choices the PCs need to make in order to grab the treasure (or maybe they don't, maybe they save their friends instead). The intrigue will force the PCs to make hard moral choices or something too. I admit, 2e might not do that, but I hardly call that 'freedom'. It is more 'put the burden on the players to figure out how to make that happen'. Even at a 'beer and pretzels' level they want SOME sort of fun character engagement. Right, a lot of B/X (or other classic D&D) works pretty well as a package. It does a fairly niche sort of game really well, and then if you expand beyond that, hey that's your business! Mostly other stuff should wait to 6th or 7th level at least. I think that was sort of the GSP pattern. Players came in, they went through the wringer, eventually they came out the other side, and now they got to do the more wide-open heroic fantasy sort of stuff, if the GM was capable of running that in a non-hamfisted way. [/QUOTE]
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