The Sacred Cow Slaughterhouse: Ideas you think D&D's better without

[Derren]

Hrm, somehow I think removing dungeons from Dungeons and Dragons might be a bit of a bridge too far for a LOT of gamers.

Dungeons should not be removed, but centering (a large part of) the game around crawling through some adjacent rooms filled with monsters which only reason to exist is to provide XP and loot for the PCs should go.
Dungeons should be used when appropriate, but their existence and appearance in a game should not be automatically assumed/expected.

 

[TwoSix]

Regarding halfling barbarians being "gimped'. That is only true if you and/or your group are focused on powergaming and/or min/maxing. Not every player or group is focused on those things. Personally, I have been been in two 3e campaigns and the halfling barbarian did just fine and held their own.

Which leads to the important consideration of who should be catered to. Powergamers and those who take mechanical considerations into strong account when designing characters? Or simulationists who view the character design rules as a major factor in worldbuilding?

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Regarding halfling barbarians being "gimped'. That is only true if you and/or your group are focused on powergaming and/or min/maxing. Not every player or group is focused on those things. Personally, I have been been in two 3e campaigns and the halfling barbarian did just fine and held their own.

You beat me to it. The difference in, frex, damage output is going to be pretty small. It's highly unlikely that the difference between winning and losing a fight will be whether you chose halforc or halfling for your racial adjustments. Any competent DM will design encounters to be appropriate to your party anyway.

 

[billd91]

Any competent DM will design encounters to be appropriate to your party anyway.

Moreover, a competent group of players will usually adapt to the situation and use their strengths to overcome or avoid an encounter even if it isn't tailor made to the party - whether the barbarian in it is a halfling, human, half orc, elf, dwarf, or gnome.

 

[Systole]

At this point, I'm sorry I used the halfling barbarian as an example, because everyone seems to be focused on that specific idea instead of the bigger picture.

In some/most/all systems, there are character concepts that do not work as well mechanically as other character concepts. We can all agree on that, right? So is the argument (a) that that's a good thing because those character concepts are bad or (b) that that's fine because the gap isn't that big? It seems like people are trying to have it both ways.

I feel I've already been pretty clear about my answer to (a). Namely, a system should be subordinate to its players, and not the other way around. If you're arguing (b), then if you'll pardon me, I'm exiting stage left before someone drags out the spreadsheets and the personal anecdotes.

The more balanced a system is, the less difference there is -- the less difference there can be -- between a roleplayer and a powergamer. I consider this a good thing. When I sit down to a game, I don't want to be forced to choose between making a character that's fun and interesting, or making a character that can pull its weight and not force the GM to throw wimpy encounters at the group. I don't feel that having to make that choice is either fun or necessary. To those that feel differently, I respectfully I have nothing further to say.

 

[Greg K]

The more balanced a system is, the less difference there is -- the less difference there can be -- between a roleplayer and a powergamer. I consider this a good thing. When I sit down to a game, I don't want to be forced to choose between making a character that's fun and interesting, or making a character that can pull its weight and not force the GM to throw wimpy encounters at the group. I don't feel that having to make that choice is either fun or necessary. To those that feel differently, I respectfully I have nothing further to say.

With terms like "wimpy" and unfun, it sounds to me that you are approaching it from a powergamer perspective in which the focus is primarily about power (in this instance about the numbers and bonuses which = power). Therefore, minimizing differences is really catering to the powergamer. I don't want the Power gamer catered to, because it eliminates what I consider lead to meaningful differences and choices in races that lead to what I consider interesting characters.

 

[Systole]

'Wimpy' was shorthand for making a GM pull his punches. If the GM has to worry about killing my character with a standard encounter, I don't think that's fair to him either.

 

[Greg K]

'Wimpy' was shorthand for making a GM pull his punches. If the GM has to worry about killing my character with a standard encounter, I don't think that's fair to him either.

As someone that almost always DMs (I get to play when I need a break, but quickly find the players calling to ask me when my campaign will resume), I don't look at it as pulling my punches. Pulling punches to me means the DM is supposed to be adversarial to the players and every edition that I own says that is not the DM's role.
To me, the DM's role is about considering the characters that I have in the party if creating tailored encounters designed to challenge them. However, I can still have both things that are weaker and things things from which the party can run

 

[RevTurkey]

Storm Giants can't support their own weight? Oh crumbs...next we'll find out that Dragons can't possibly breath fire or that Spectres can't drain life energy!

I quite liked it when character classes progressed at different speeds. Can we resurrect that long dead sacred cow please? It sort of made sense to me that learning some things took more time than others...it also balanced things like the weakness of starting Magic Users vs experienced ones flinging Lightning Bolts etc and the greater XP points required to achieve that level of mastery. Well, I liked it anyway. The desire to unify every mechanic has sometimes led to a bit of flavour going I think..

It's funny Systole but I was really keen to try 13th Age but your enthusiastic description of the race mechanics actually puts me off a bit. Why should a Halfling be as strong as someone twice his physical size. Makes no sense if that's how it works. Just like the blanket +1 5e playtest racial stat bonuses for humans...makes no sense. Having said that...yes we are dealing with fantasy worlds where reality has gone bye bye but even so a little bit of simulation can help us suspend our disbelief and enter these strange magical and mysterious worlds of imagination.

Sacred Cows I'd like to ditch...hmm (I get that some people might like these)

The word 'proficiency'...it's just clunky. I was glad to see it go. Sad to see it return.
Cantrips...just again a needless additional word. They are Spells...call them that.
Following on from that...maybe have Spell Levels match Actual Levels. You are 1st level....hey you can manage 1st level spells. You are 5th level....woah...it's those 5th level ones for you. Spread the spells out over more levels than 7 or 9 and granulate the system more interestingly.

Just today's thoughts...probably change my mind tomorrow

 

[Systole]

I also GM, and my players like my games. As a GM, part of my job is to provide challenges that are difficult but ultimately surmountable. Calling this process adversarial is putting words in my mouth.

However, when a character is poorly built (either compared to the rest of the group or just generally speaking) then the line between 'providing a challenge' and 'turning the PC into chunky salsa' becomes smaller and smaller. In my experience, when that line is narrow enough, I end up feeling stressed and no longer enjoying the experience of GMing. Therefore, unoptimized characters are not fair to me as a GM.