The Changing Game

[Oni]

At low levels, the PCs had to work hard just to survive. Dungeon delving was dangerous business with death lurking around every corner. Life was procedural and cautious, lest one fell victim to some monster or death trap. After a few levels, however, things changed. The characters became more confident in their abilities and could survive longer, go farther and dig deeper. they could escape the dungeon and spread out into the wilderness, seeking adventure where it may be, regardless of how many miles they had to traverse to get there. Certainly, danger still lurked, but mid level characters met it head on. And while dungeons till served as core adventure locales, they shared space with towns and exterior ruins and wilderness. The world got bigger for them. Once the low high levels were reached, the game changed again. Followers came to serve the PCs and fortresses could be built. Level adavancement slowed, making the killing of monsters and taking of stuff secondary to interacting with the world. With newfound power (sometimes personal, sometimes political -- a dvision almost universally drawn down the line between "mundane" and "mystical") and responsibility, characters could engage and change the world. Moreover, the threats faced by these characters were often those of high intelligence as well as great destructive power -- it was no longer an issue of simply slaughtering monsters, but of facing down real evil. At even higher levels, characters often retired. Those that didn't, though, could wage open war (the Companion war machine rules), seek immortality, traverse the planes and even face down gods. While we don't know much about his early days, the progression hews close to the career of Beowulf -- adventurous youth, hero, ruler and finally meeting his destiny against the greatest of all foes..

I find myself having to ask how much of this is really not possible in the current version of Dungeon & Dragons, and how much of it you really need rules for in the first place.

On a slightly different note from a stand point of a game being something to challenge, how desirable is it that a game actually becomes easier and less lethal the more you play as per your suggestion at the beginning there.

 

[Reynard]

I find myself having to ask how much of this is really not possible in the current version of Dungeon & Dragons, and how much of it you really need rules for in the first place.

No one "needs" rules for anything; at least, doesn't need the book to provide rules. the social contracts we play under a "rules" as they are defined in game design. However, formalized rules have, in general, more authority and their existence provides players who like manipulating and/or working within rules systems an option. Suggesting that rules aren't "needed" for any particular activity, from negotiations with the hungry dragon to acquiring followers, by folks that like combat rules simply underscores their bias. I can handwave bull rushes and disarms as easily as I can castle maintenance costs (remember 2E's "-4 to hit" called shots? very handwavy but also useful), but that doesn't make it desirable to do so for any of those things.

On a slightly different note from a stand point of a game being something to challenge, how desirable is it that a game actually becomes easier and less lethal the more you play as per your suggestion at the beginning there.

There's "challenging" and there's AD&D 1st level characters challenging.

 

[Oni]

No one "needs" rules for anything; at least, doesn't need the book to provide rules. the social contracts we play under a "rules" as they are defined in game design. However, formalized rules have, in general, more authority and their existence provides players who like manipulating and/or working within rules systems an option. Suggesting that rules aren't "needed" for any particular activity, from negotiations with the hungry dragon to acquiring followers, by folks that like combat rules simply underscores their bias. I can handwave bull rushes and disarms as easily as I can castle maintenance costs (remember 2E's "-4 to hit" called shots? very handwavy but also useful), but that doesn't make it desirable to do so for any of those things.

I feel that you've sidestepped the question somewhat.

Do I have to have to have rules to say that a fighter becomes a landed noble at 9th level? Why couldn't he earn the right before? What if he doesn't deserve it then? More to the point is this something that should be handled by the rules or by roleplay. That I feel the latter is the correct answers should in no way be construed as a desire to reduce the game to cops and robbers. Saying not everything needs rules, is not the same as saying who needs rules at all. I mean we could make rules about how well your character butters their toast in the morning but would the game really be better for it?

Is the ability to engage and change the world something that needs a chart or something that should be decided by the actions of the players?

Is there something preventing them from facing more intelligent or dangerous foes in this new edition? Or is that a function of story as decided by the DM and players? Who decides when you stop slaughting monsters for the hell of it and decide to face down some real evil the game designer or the people actually playing the game?

Are characters no longer capable of retiring or are they now on a force march by the rules to never lay down their sword and take a rest?

Is there something in the new rules stopping people from seeking immortality, traversing the planes, or facing down gods?

These are the things the people playing the game bring to the table, the story and the choices. I think it's really off the mark to imply that they are missing from the game or downplayed because they don't have a die roll or chart or some random level assigned to them.



That said I'll grant you the mass combat rules, but as you've kindly pointed out that's largely supplemental material isn't it even in the past.

 

[Reynard]

I feel that you've sidestepped the question somewhat.

Do I have to have to have rules to say that a fighter becomes a landed noble at 9th level? Why couldn't he earn the right before? What if he doesn't deserve it then? More to the point is this something that should be handled by the rules or by roleplay. That I feel the latter is the correct answers should in no way be construed as a desire to reduce the game to cops and robbers. Saying not everything needs rules, is not the same as saying who needs rules at all. I mean we could make rules about how well your character butters their toast in the morning but would the game really be better for it?

Not what I was saying. What I was saying was that there's as much "need" for detailed rules regarding player character rulership, say, as there is for detailed combat. And I'm not even suggesting that a system as robust as the combat system should be applied to the status of the characters as leader, merchants, or whatever. I'm merely suggesting that there is a place for those rules.

But this is tangential, I think to my original point in this thread, that the game, in previous editions, created a character narrative through the game system itself by "changing the rules" as certain stages and thereby either strongly suggesting or outright demanding a change in "play".

Is the ability to engage and change the world something that needs a chart or something that should be decided by the actions of the players?

I think it's really off the mark to imply that they are missing from the game or downplayed because they don't have a die roll or chart or some random level assigned to them.

And I would disagree. While these things you mention may or may not exist in any given example of a groups playspace, a lack of game system support for such things indicates that it is heavily downplayed and not part of the overall design goal of the game. Moreover, the only people doing such things will be those that did it in previous editions, because they are the only ones who know it is or should be possible.

What we "old hats" do at our 4E tables is a completely different thing than what new players -- the stated target demographic for 4E -- will do with it. Therefore, not only has the "game system" changed, the "game" (as a cultural force) has changed as well.

 

[Ourph]

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.

In your original post you noted that, among the transitions that happened in earlier editions of the game, PCs went from "work[ing] hard just to survive" and leading a life that was "procedural and cautious" to being "more confident in their abilities" and being able to "survive longer, go farther and dig deeper". You also noted that as PCs advanced in level "they could escape the dungeon and spread out into the wilderness, seeking adventure where it may be, regardless of how many miles they had to traverse to get there".

So it seems to me that your assertion of what D&D used to do is broader in scope than the very specific act of becoming a landowner and retiring from the adventuring life. And it also seems that a number of posters have pointed out exactly how 4e still provides many of the same kinds of transitions you were discussing in your OP. Again, I'll point out that saying "The game doesn't change" is a very different thing than saying "the game doesn't insist that PCs retire from adventuring and become sedentary landowners at some point in their career".

 

[LostSoul]

The most political games I have ever played have been using Burning Wheel / Empires.

Skill Challenges seems to be very similar to the Duel of Wits, one of the things in BW that enables that sort of political play.

It strikes me that one could use Skill Challenges in order to get some kind of political play in 4E.

 

[Ariosto]

It does not take a lot of words. The treatment of castle construction, men at arms and other servants, income, expenses and so on was extremely succinct in the original booklets.

However, so were the rules for fighting monsters -- and they didn't play in constant slow-mo!

This new game explicitly removes the option of playing such a relatively normal sort as the 1st-level characters even of 3E. Perhaps less explicitly (but as universally received in my experience), it makes "No!" the default answer to whether one can do something for which one has no special "exception" to that general rule. The Feats and Powers (to the limited extent they map to any experience other than a video game) are all about confining the ability to do thing x to a character with a specified "stat." Those many, many stats are overwhelmingly devoted to creating effects in the "tactical" board game.

There's a basic problem. Both the low-level and the high-level games in older editions were not primarily about lists of "abilities" on the character sheet. They were to a greater degree challenges of the players' abilities. That was true even in the dungeon modules. The notion that real exploration and role-playing can adequately be replaced with mechanical "skill challenges" must at least be considered in light of the obvious fact that they are quite different matters.

The emphasis on a homogenized "balance" in the new game may not prevent the sort of initiatives with variable outcomes characteristic of the old game, but it certainly does not encourage them!

That the old modules did so little to demonstrate the many facets of the game (most of those for 1st ed. AD&D having originated as convention tournament scenarios), and that many players "raised" on modules came to neglect many facets ... might be more than mere coincidence. When a new generation of players is presented with such constrained horizons from the get-go as 4E presents, what should we expect by the time 5E rolls around?