Theories regaurding the change in rules of D&D.

[Varianor Abroad]

The more rules in many ways act now to *inhibit* creativity and character options. It comes through the very process of defining everything.

Gotta disagree. The act of having common definitions that everyone understands enhances creativity. For a while I admit that I thought 3E inhibited creativity. I realize now that it was just the inherent laziness of most of us participating in a game not wanting to take the time to write on our own because someone else might do the work for you. (Nor do most people want really out there materials.) When you put something together that's new in 3E, you can have an instant dialogue with most people on the same page.

 

[Scribble]

Limiting it to a younger demographic was probably a smart move.

They need new blood, not the old heads.

 

[fuindordm]

Gotta disagree. The act of having common definitions that everyone understands enhances creativity. For a while I admit that I thought 3E inhibited creativity. I realize now that it was just the inherent laziness of most of us participating in a game not wanting to take the time to write on our own because someone else might do the work for you. (Nor do most people want really out there materials.) When you put something together that's new in 3E, you can have an instant dialogue with most people on the same page.

The common ground is useful, but chalk me up on the side of discouraging creativity. The main problem in my mind is that 3E creates the mindset where every aspect of your character has to have a mechanical counterpart. And in the end that is frustrating for me, because I'm always thinking of character backgrounds before I stat out the PC. Then I usually find that I don't have access to the skills and abilities I want.

I'm starting up a 1e campaign in the fall, and am just telling people to write up a background. Any difficult, specialized non-combat skills which make sense in terms of this background can be attempted with an ability check (usually Int-based). So there will be no ranks and no laundry list of "the disguise skill can do this and this and this...", just characters making use of their history.

In 3E my solution has been to allow liberal tweaking of class abilities along the lines of UA, which helps quite a bit. For 4E what I really would like to see is to see classes that provide a menu of options on character creation. SW Saga's talent trees are not too far from this.

Ben

 

[painandgreed]

Limiting it to a younger demographic was probably a smart move.

They need new blood, not the old heads.

Assuming it works. The same data also showed that once people stuck with it, they stuck with it for a long time. Fundamentally changing it to a younger demographic might change that outcome and hurt the game more in the long run. In the olden days, you had the Basic set D&D that tended to draw the kids in and then they graduated to AD&D. I imagine that lots of those who never made it past the first year also never made it into AD&D. Also, the game is not currently geared to a younger demographic as it has a pertty serious buyin price of the three core books in both terms of money and rules to learn. It might havbe served them better to have a Basic edition and an Advanced edition.

 

[JustinA]

Well, what does beer and pretzels mean? Are we talking plain pretzels and domestic ale, flavored pretzels and imported lager, bread sticks and boutique draught? The possibilities are endless...

Finding a definition of "beer and pretzels game" took about five seconds worth of Google searching: "A beer and pretzels game is a game which is humorous and light on rules and strategy, usually containing many random elements." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_and_pretzels_game)

It's a well-understood term with wide usage and a common understanding of its meaning. I can also go from that common understanding and quickly figure out what you mean when you apply the term to a pen 'n paper RPG: It's a humorous RPG with light rules and minimal strategy, probably containing lots of random elements.

"Videogame" is also a term with a common understanding of its meaning. For consistency, we'll pull from Wikipedia again: "A video game is a game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videogame)

When I attempt to apply that definition to pen 'n paper RPGs, however, I get nonsense: There is no visual feedback, no user interface, and no video device to be found in 3rd Edition.

So, clearly, when someone applies the descriptor "videogamish" to 3rd Edition, they must be talking about something other than the common understanding and basic definition of the term "videogame".

And yet, despite years of me trying to get an answer to this question on multiple forums, no one seems willing to actually provide an explanation of whatever the heck it is they mean when they say "3rd edition is more 'videogamish'". I, personally, consider this to be very telling.

"An encounter with an Encounter Level (EL) equal to the PCs' level is one that should expend about 20% of their resources... This means on average, that after four encounters of the party's level the PCs need to rest, heal, and regain spells. A fifth enounter would probably wipe them out." --3.5 DMG, p. 49

Thanks for providing the exact quote to demonstrate that you were wrong all along. That kind of intellectual integrity is rare.

(You do realize that quote directly contradicts your original post, right?)

And I'm not so sure that they inhibit creativity. And I think you can work within the framework to get the effect you want. (e.g. Set low DCs & use Take 10.) But I do think that they can bog the game down in details that don't really add much to the experience. For me.

A lot of people assume that all of these rules in 3rd Edition make it more difficult for new players. In my experience -- not only with RPGs, but in other fields as well -- the structure and support that 3rd Edition offers actually makes it easier for new players to run the game.

Why? Because if you're trying to figure out how to do something, 3rd Edition is probably going to tell you how to do it.

Much like a properly-constructed dungeon crawl gives the DM everything they need to know about running an adventure while naturally and unobtrusively constraining player options, the support and structure of D&D rarely leaves the DM or player dangling without guidance.

For old-hands who'd rather just trust their well-informed guts, this can be problematic. Why keep track of all these fiddly details when you and your friends -- who are all on the same bandwidth because you've been playing together for years -- can spit out an answer on-the-fly that does the job just as well?

Me, I'm an old-hand who appreciates the creativity which only becomes possible in a structured environment. But I'm also a big fan of improv theater, so that might be influencing my opinion here.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

 

[Scribble]

Assuming it works. The same data also showed that once people stuck with it, they stuck with it for a long time. Fundamentally changing it to a younger demographic might change that outcome and hurt the game more in the long run. In the olden days, you had the Basic set D&D that tended to draw the kids in and then they graduated to AD&D. I imagine that lots of those who never made it past the first year also never made it into AD&D. Also, the game is not currently geared to a younger demographic as it has a pertty serious buyin price of the three core books in both terms of money and rules to learn. It might havbe served them better to have a Basic edition and an Advanced edition.

Yeah, but that way seemed to be failing already. It doesn't matter if we stuck with it for a long time. We won't always be around, and most of us, as we get older, don't have the expendable income for the product that the younger crowd has.

They needed to find a way to market to that crowd. Did it work? That's another argument, one I don't have any data on.

I completely disagree that money has anything to do with it being for younger demographic or not. True, I have more money now that I'm older, but I also have many more expenses to use that money on. Things I didn't have when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, if/when I had money the choice was what thing I wanted to buy with it, not what thing I needed to pay off with it...

 

[Numion]

The common ground is useful, but chalk me up on the side of discouraging creativity. The main problem in my mind is that 3E creates the mindset where every aspect of your character has to have a mechanical counterpart. And in the end that is frustrating for me, because I'm always thinking of character backgrounds before I stat out the PC. Then I usually find that I don't have access to the skills and abilities I want.

To me that sounds like you want your cake and eat it too. If you whip up a PC who's a desert dweller before adventuring, you're likely to lack certain water related skills (like swimming, sailing, fishing) which you might need later.

Or maybe you're just thinking up backgrounds that aren't very likely or good adventurers

 

[Scribble]

The common ground is useful, but chalk me up on the side of discouraging creativity. The main problem in my mind is that 3E creates the mindset where every aspect of your character has to have a mechanical counterpart. And in the end that is frustrating for me, because I'm always thinking of character backgrounds before I stat out the PC. Then I usually find that I don't have access to the skills and abilities I want.

I'm starting up a 1e campaign in the fall, and am just telling people to write up a background. Any difficult, specialized non-combat skills which make sense in terms of this background can be attempted with an ability check (usually Int-based). So there will be no ranks and no laundry list of "the disguise skill can do this and this and this...", just characters making use of their history.

In 3E my solution has been to allow liberal tweaking of class abilities along the lines of UA, which helps quite a bit. For 4E what I really would like to see is to see classes that provide a menu of options on character creation. SW Saga's talent trees are not too far from this.

Ben

Can you give an example of where this comes into play?

The vast majority of skills seem to be usable even without ranks... Ranks, to me, represent
an advanced level of study above and beyond the norm.

The ranger without the swim skill mentioned above can still swim... I can swim too. I wouldn't say I have ranks in swimming though. I doubt I could tackle a rushing river while wearing armor and lots of gear. THAT takes more training then I got.

 

[painandgreed]

Thanks for providing the exact quote to demonstrate that you were wrong all along. That kind of intellectual integrity is rare.

(You do realize that quote directly contradicts your original post, right?)

Nope. I think you just misread what I wrote since that was the bit I was paraphrasing.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Reading the above threads, I think the problem currently being discussed is that players who learned D&D in the OD&D -- AD&D days learned with a system that (on paper) generated woefully incomplete persons. They thus learned to make PC's where a PC's character sheet was only a single facet of who the character was. There was no skill system until Non-Weapon Proficiencies, and that system was so absurd as to be ignored. One look at it and you had to immediately conclude "This can't be all my character knows, so it must be only the stuff I'm really good at." You would then mentally fill in the gaps, just like SHARK did in his examples. Since there was no codified way of writing these things down (other than with a narrative type character history), you were forced to "wing it", as in SHARK's examples. The character sheet was "spells & combat stuff only."

3e attempted to provide a system for generating more feature-complete characters, and it did so successfully. Now you know exactly how good your character is at Intimidation relative to the other PC's and the public generally. It also is good enough, and complete enough, to "trick" people into thinking that their character classes and levels are a definitive record of who their PC "is". There's nothing else. If it's not on the page, you can't do it (or you can, but you provoke an AOO ).

The "new" problem is that the class & level system does not accurately model how people actually learn stuff (I say "new" in quotes because it's not a new problem at all - class and level has never accurately represented how people learn, but because of the change discussed above class and level is the new constraint* on roleplaying). In "real life" there is no link between fighting skill and how good a swimmer you are (as a lifeguard who never got past yellow-belt in Tae Kwon Do, I am living proof of this). The problem that SHARK is alluding to is that many people (particular older players who are not used to being skill-limited by their character class and level) want to make characters that know more stuff, without actually being better fighters.

I think a fairly simple House Rule that allowed for skill acquisition independent of level advancement would address SHARK's need for flexibility while also addressing Patryn of Elvenshae's and Doug McCrae's concerns about "making stuff up as you go along." The example of SHARK's noble-fighter could be simply addressed by a higher starting age in exchange for some "free" skill points to distribute to Diplomacy, Knowledge (Nobility) and the like. This would reflect the time spent on his noble education.

A house rule like this is necessary because of 3e's multi-classing rules. It simply is the case that taking levels in NPC classes such as Expert or Noble is a sub-optimal choice, but given the RAW, that's currently the only avenue open to you if you want more skills than your adventuring-class level otherwise qualifies you for.

Thus, the rules have evolved to increase the "completeness" of your character sheet, such that it is now a more accurate description of what your PC is (the "roll player"), but simultaneously it has been revealed to be an inaccurate description of what a real person (the "role player") could/ would/ should look like (because the false link between the class & level mechanic and the skill sub-system are the new constraint on roleplaying).

* - This is a term of art. Search WikiPedia for the Theory of Constraints to get a fuller grasp on what I mean.