The "real" reason the game has changed.

[shadzar]

Actually, Holmes, Moldvay/Cook, Mentzer and rules Compendium can be considered different editions of "Basic" or OD&D, depending on how you want to look at it, and "Essentials" is Essentials"kind of a "half edition" in the 3.0/3.5 vein, and one could argue that AD&D 2e with "Skills and Powers" is a half edition as well, so you're actually looking at 9-12 iterations of D&D.

Technically each one is a different game than the one before, rather than jsut an update to the game because changing the engine makes it a new thing and not fully compatible with the old with just fixes. But I wasnt wanting to go into that much detail where I was jsut talking about the difference from making a new edition being solely based on making it "better" as I was replying to.

We could probably count them up in a new thread, but BECMI alone is different games depending on which parts you use and which is a prerequisite to use another one....

 

[engrishonly]

Building the game around crutches only means you are building a faulty game since it requires those crutches and that should be avoided.

If the game is "in the imagination", then what's the objection to a mechanical aid? The character sheet is a crutch! Dice are a crutch!

Moving formats from paper to e-formats (with actual usability in mind)? It's just reformatting the flow of the data stream.

It's not that I want to stay plugged in. I have a wife, 2 kids, a full time job... And it's lame that I have to say it to prove my offline-ness.

I just want mechanical aids that fit our modern era. I get enough lame paperwork at my work. Why should I put up with user-unfriendly data solutions for my gaming?

 

[shadzar]

If the game is "in the imagination", then what's the objection to a mechanical aid? The character sheet is a crutch! Dice are a crutch!

Moving formats from paper to e-formats (with actual usability in mind)? It's just reformatting the flow of the data stream.

It's not that I want to stay plugged in. I have a wife, 2 kids, a full time job... And it's lame that I have to say it to prove my offline-ness.

I just want mechanical aids that fit our modern era. I get enough lame paperwork at my work. Why should I put up with user-unfriendly data solutions for my gaming?

Like I said it was in response to you, but not directed ONLY at you, but a larger problem.

A problem with what you say is not you dont have the time, but the game has so many requirements that you must make the time or need these crutches. Either you need to change games, or the games need to adapt to require less "work".

The crutches wont really help compete with the digital gaming experience, so in order to compete, you must make a game that can inspire without the digital components, and be simple and quick enough in order to grab the attention without having to do all the work to play.

Players REALLY have about as much work to do to play as DMs do now.

You used to jsut be able to go to someone's house and play without bringing anything except maybe a pencil and some paper...you didnt need a book to read to know how to do thing, or some 10 page (1 gig bitmap) character sheet to flip through to play. You jsut made a decision, were handed a die, rolled it to find it your decided activity worked, and moved on to the next thing.

So it isnt you, it is the game posing the major problems in the "need" for these crutches, because it is lame (as in broken leg to go with the crutch analogy).

When the game becomes healthy again it, and you, wont need such crutches.

Your "want" isnt the problem, it is the fact the game has a problem to make you want such things, THAT is the problem.

-status trackers
-power trackers
-all that minutia and bookkeeping/accounting 4th was supposed to remove but left in

These are the problems for the need of the crutches, not that you are busy and have an offline and non-gaming life.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Tabletop games have been going downhill ever since the Industrial Revolution butchered the ideal of the single artisan.

Technology! *shakes fist vigorously!*

 

[Diamond Cross]

YEAH! TECHNOLOGY IS THE DEVIL'S TOOL!

DOWN WITH TECHNOLOGY!

But then there'd be no paper for our RPGs or fantasy habits...

 

[Mallus]

Tabletop games have been going downhill ever since the Industrial Revolution butchered the ideal of the single artisan.

The hand-carved d20s and illuminated graph paper of the Middle Ages were truly things of beauty.

 

[JeffB]

You know, I used to feel the same way. I too used to envy the people who have time to play games for hours each week.

But then I realized something--I really DON'T envy them. Because if my life revolved around gaming rather than, say, my beautiful family or my intellectually and emotionally fulfilling career, then it would a sad, depressing state of affairs.

Just my two cents.

Well certainly I have made my choices in life, and would never let gaming (or anything else) stand in the way of my family either. They are THE most important thing to me.

I simply meant that I wish I had time to do it all

 

[TarionzCousin]

You know, I used to feel the same way. I too used to envy the people who have time to play games for hours each week.

But then I realized something--I really DON'T envy them. Because if my life revolved around gaming rather than, say, my beautiful family or my intellectually and emotionally fulfilling career, then it would a sad, depressing state of affairs.

Just my two cents.

Good for you to have found your niche in life: fuel-powered woodcutting ensorcelled spellcrafting, aka "Lignimancy."


As for the future of RPG's, I suppose digitilization and/or online supplements are inevitable. But I prefer the Paizo way of publishing to the Warhammer way; WotC doesn't need to put out a new edition every few years.

 

[pemerton]

I've made my point many times before and I don't have issues with supporting the story; be it in regard to 4E or any system. But when 4E says that my wizard gets better at climbing as he levels, that is the system imposing itself on the story, not simply failing to remind you of a story. When 4E says that challenge level defines attacks, damage, defenses much more than what the challenge in question is, that is the system imposing itself on the story, not simply failing to remind you of a story. Over and over the system is about the game balance and mechanics coming first.

It's true that the system sets parameters around the story that can be told (for example, given that your mage can climb and jump, you have to tell a story as to why - perhaps your mage is good at self-telekinesis). But this is true also of AD&D, which precludes telling a story in which a mage wields a longsword - which is a story at least as conceivable, from the point of view of an imagination untutored in game rules, as a story about a non-climbing mage.

That's not to say that there's no difference between the way AD&D and 4e approach the relationship between character building, action resolution and ingame elements. Of course there is - AD&D approximates to simulationism in its outlook, whereas 4e starts with the metagame. And these have implications in play. But to try and describe those implications by saying that only in 4e do the mechanics shape the story is, in my view, a misdescription.

To reinforce this conclusion, I'll pose the question that I frequently do and that is rarely responded to - if metagame-heavy design and play really impeded story, then it would be the case that a game like HeroQuest or The Dying Earth was a weaker vehicle for story-rich roleplaying than a game like Rolemaster, Runquest or 3E D&D. But is there anyone who believes this?

 

[shadzar]

But this is true also of AD&D, which precludes telling a story in which a mage wields a longsword - which is a story at least as conceivable, from the point of view of an imagination untutored in game rules, as a story about a non-climbing mage.

It does?

Militant Wizard
<snip>
Weapon Proficiency: Required (choose one from of the following): <snip> sword (any), <snip>

Granted they weren't the default style the wizard was depicted as, but even before the above, a DM could change things as they see fit. Don't like clerics unable to use blades, then let them use blades as well.

Where these defaults are set at the beginning of AD&D, 4th evens out all classes to have similarities, so forces some thigns on you as you play, rahter than letting you decide how you advance. So if in AD&D you chose the wizard, you either worked with the group to remove the banishment of swords, or you accepted it and still could choose what other things you did as you leveled for character growth, rather than your growth being decided for you; as i think BryonD is suggesting with the things 4th dictates as the character grows which impedes player decided growth options for the character. Also was replying to a comment directly about 4th edition, so really including other editions would just be diluting the conversation.

No edition can really force the story, unless you allow it to; but some are pushing it hard enough to notice more when the mechanics are applied: swordles wizards, bladeles celric, wizards gainging in ability to climb, etc.

HeroQuest IS a weaker vehicle for story-rich roleplaying where the players get to take part in forming that story as the game is built around one plot...escape from capture. So long as you are telling that story, you are fine, but divert from it and the game itself doesn't offer anything for that. You have to make your own tiles, make someone to rescue or any number of things to break out of Zargon/Morcar's arena. The GM can change all this, but the game again isn't designed for it unles you design your own components or expect to see bookcases and walled rooms in forests and such, or are in VERY small cities with the same design and the buildings all in the same place, etc.