The Changing Game

[Reynard]

Check out ANY Dragon adventure path (Shackled City, Age of Worms, etc). See any nation building? Any strategic use of troops? Complex diplomatic negotiations? Nope. 1-20 all dungeons.

Yeah, I kind of blame Paizo for "mainstreaming" the idea that D&D PCs are only good for running around and beating things in the head, no matter how high level they get.

I wonder though, if this has something to do with the game slow-down past 12th level in AD&D games (Your PC retires to rule his lands. roll 4d6).

I think it has tons to do with that fact. Like I said, diminishing returns for going into holes, killing things and taking said things' stuff. Plus, it just rings true to me: very often those who spend their youth becoming heroes on the front lines end up the ones in the seats of power later

 

[malraux]

Yeah, I kind of blame Paizo for "mainstreaming" the idea that D&D PCs are only good for running around and beating things in the head, no matter how high level they get.

Sounds to me like market forces at work.

 

[nightwyrm]

So...D&D should incorporate Birthright into its core rules? I'm not sure that using the rules to force a genre shift in mid D&D levels is such a good idea. The game as it stands doesn't prevent you from shifting to a more political/fiefdom building focused game in your group, but if the rules were to force such a shift at say lv 15+, it would just make ppl who don't want to play that type of game not play pass lv 15.

As for "name levels" in previous editions, wasn't it encouraged that once PCs get to those levels, players should retire them and make up new chars?

Whenever I played D&D, I've always wanted to play heroic fantasy. If I wanted to play Farms & Fiefdoms, I'd pick up Agricola or Dominion.

 

[wedgeski]

I'm really not seeing what you're seeing Reynard, but, I do think it's an interesting observation to claim that earlier editions advocated a fundamental switch in gameplay by back-loading the XP charts so that advancement slowed down. If anything my own experience of AD&D 'supports' this, in that we did have PC's with keeps and so-on, but I would be looking through rose-tinted glasses if I thought that the games we played ever got to the point where XP, treasure, magic items, the dispatching of enemies, and general hit-point-related violence took second place to political wrangling, the governance of territories, the maintenance of keeps, or anything like that.

Sure, our name characters had keeps. We had little tables which told us how much gold we'd have to take out of our coffers "every month" in order to support and maintain a fleet of butlers, guardsmen, cooks, bards, etc. But it was a quaint diversion at best, a bragging right. Somewhere to retire to between adventures, somewhere to draw little maps of if we felt in the mood. The mechanics which supported these diversions never, ever caused the game to morph into anything other than, well, D&D. The party keep was somewhere we retired to between various bouts of adventuring, and if anything, the gradual decline in advancement caused way more campaigns to fold, and favourite adventurers to retire, than ever caused the campaign to change to accomodate the lack of options.

So, I fail to see a shift in the way I've played the game through the editions, and I can't agree that systemic changes have somehow flattened the experience to a point where 30th level is "the same" as 1st level in everything except your tactical options. The campaign changes around the players, the people they're dealing with change dramatically, the problems they have to solve change in grand orders of magnitude. This, to me, is no different than the process which occured twenty years ago.

 

[wedgeski]

Double post.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

None of these things change play. They change players' tactics and alter the scope and scale of adventures, but play is still, as described in the DMG, going into dangerous locales (dungeons), defeating enemies in mortal combat (killing things), and acquiring forgotten relics (taking its stuff). As made clear by my OP, I am talking about a change in the actual play of the game, of the goals of the players and the systems and methods of achieving those goals.

I think there is a difference in "what we do" between traveling the world to find the sage for information or just performing a ritual so that the sage (or even a gods avatar) comes to you and answers your question.

 

[LostSoul]

As made clear by my OP, I am talking about a change in the actual play of the game, of the goals of the players and the systems and methods of achieving those goals.

A different game, then?

Why? Why would someone who's been playing one game for 6 months want to have it suddenly change into a different game? Why wouldn't it make more sense for one game to focus on one thing and another game to focus on another thing?

You could make it compatible with D&D characters, but it's still a different game and I think it would be better off being a completely different product instead of messing people up who are playing D&D.

 

[Reynard]

A different game, then?

Why? Why would someone who's been playing one game for 6 months want to have it suddenly change into a different game? Why wouldn't it make more sense for one game to focus on one thing and another game to focus on another thing?

You could make it compatible with D&D characters, but it's still a different game and I think it would be better off being a completely different product instead of messing people up who are playing D&D.

It may make more sense. The 4E design team obviously decided it did. However, it's one of those legacies of D&D I rather like, not least because it kind of has that "heroic saga" aspect to it where heroes' destinies almost always lead them to rulership, and usually to one last grand adventure in which they die defeating the Mother of All Monsters.

 

[Ourph]

I think you're conflating the idea that "The game doesn't change in this one certain, specific way." with "The game doesn't change.". People have given lots of examples of how the actual play (goals, strategies, tactics, location, scope and more) changes by tier. The fact that the rules don't tell you to retire your character to a sedentary life of non-adventuring isn't the same as the rules not providing different play experiences as characters gain levels.

 

[Reynard]

I think you're conflating the idea that "The game doesn't change in this one certain, specific way." with "The game doesn't change.". People have given lots of examples of how the actual play (goals, strategies, tactics, location, scope and more) changes by tier. The fact that the rules don't tell you to retire your character to a sedentary life of non-adventuring isn't the same as the rules not providing different play experiences as characters gain levels.

Right, but the whole subject was about that very kind of change, not the "I'm higher level so I can explore the Abyss instead of the Underdark" kind of change.