Theories regaurding the change in rules of D&D.

[Raven Crowking]

"Survival of the fittest" is a very compact, meaningful phrase. Like "E=mc^2" or "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time", it is very meaningful if you have the tools to unpack it. It's loaded with meaning, and I actually see the processes it describes happening around me all the time, like the color green or the effects of gravity.

The phrase is only meaningful if you understand what the speaker means already. This is different, IMHO, from your other two exsamples, which contain the information needed to "unpack" them if you understand the language you are using.

Similarly, "You are not using monsters effectively" doesn't contain enough information to unpack what effective use is. It's one of those phrases that, if you understand exactly what is meant, the phrase is not required, and if you do not understand exactly what is meant, the phrase is valueless.

Which is why something like Hussar's thread about factors that go into determining ECL is helpful; they put the concept into a useful context that is not inherently self-referential.

IMHO, of course. YMMV.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I never, ever said innefectually. Reread what I said please.

Did I quote you? No. Was I talking about you? No.

This tangent goes back to a comment made by Numion. And, while I think he is correct in his statement, I don't think that the statement itself is of any benefit unless you already know exactly what is meant by it (in which case it conveys nothing new to you, and is of no benefit, except possibly as reinforcement of a view that you already hold).

Contrast that with your thread about factors that affect ECL, and you will see what I mean (I hope).

BTW, though, while combat in D&D is in many ways a "numbers game", choices can so affect the numbers that I don't think the base numbers themselves form an absolute indicator of anything. Your aforementioned thread brings up a lot of things that can change the meaning of the base numbers, so that the CR of the creatures fought can be less important than the circumstances they are fought in (and in some cases at least the means used to control circumstances to your favour).

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

First off, limiting the response age to 35 didn't exactly exclude a large segment of the gaming population.

Without knowing the size of each population group, we have no way of knowing this.

That assumes that gaming tastes were dramatically different for a 25 year old gamer and a 45 year old gamer.

No, it does not.

It is tantamount to saying that excluding Target Group X from voting isn't really exclusion because we don't know that including Target Group X would change the outcome.

The idea of polling is presumably to determine what gaming tastes exist, and such a poll might have told us whether or not gaming tastes were dramatically different for a 25 year old gamer and a 45 year old gamer. Seeking information doesn't assume that the information is going to be one thing or another.

Exclusions in polling are used, AFAIK, because (1) you don't have the manpower to perform a more inclusive poll, (2) the excluded group falls outside your target demographic, and/or (3) the pollers believe that the excluded group will/may skew the results.

Drawing the conclusion that WotC didn't poll gamers over 35 implies one or more of the above to be true. Experience tells me that in the case of (1) they would have limited the polling areas, or used random selection to limit the polls. This suggests that reasons (2) and/or (3) were the operative reasons.

RC

 

[mmadsen]

IThe evolution of silver pieces from "hoped for reward" to "assumed mechanic." Wealth has changed in D&D from being a question of "the potential of unlimited riches" to "the guarantee of what the average gamer should expect; no more, no less."

While older editions did not have explicit wealth guidelines, they nonetheless had expectations about how much treasure was appropriate and how much gear a character should have at various levels.

The larger difference is that many old-school games involved low-level characters who were expected to die in their pursuit of treasure, not young heroes destined for greatness.

The slow expansion of Skills from "none" to "necessary for your class, but your character's additional knowledge is roleplayed" to "all possible skills." We've touched on this already, but I would really like to focus on how certain Skills are not "skills" at all (like Jump), and subject to physical limitations, while others (like Knowledge) are very much Skills. Also, if most Skills are untrained, does it make sense to say that someone who has "maxed out" on a skill is only 20% better at it then someone who's never even "cracked open a book"?

Over the years, D&D's designers have made a number of odd decisions about how "skills" (and other qualities) improve as a character progresses from level to level.

Look at the difference in a company of archers who are first-level vs. second-level Fighters. If you had no preconceived notions, what would you expect of "better" archers? Above all, you'd expect them to hit their targets more often. Perhaps the last thing on your list would be that they'd be more durable. Yet they have twice the hit points and only hit their targets, say, 45% of the time instead of 40%.

Now we add a skill system that recognizes that starting characters should have skills commensurate with a childhood and adolescence spent in training, or 4 ranks in the appropriate skills -- except for fighting, where a young knight or archer still has a BAB of +1. Anyway, the difference years of training, an entire apprenticeship, makes is +4, or +20%. Twin brothers who apprentice to different masters of different trades aren't much better or worse than one another at their respective trades. Odd

In OD&D a Fighting-Man had 1d8 HP and swords did 1-6 damage. There were no bonuses. Now a two-handed sword can do 2d6+7 (~5% chance of double that), while HP have only advanced to 1d10+Con. The "arms race" has favored damage output over survivability, it seems.

Levels have also gone up considerably, increasing hit points considerably without increasing damage nearly as much.

This has also changed the flavor of the game considerably. It used to be that a sword hit was disabling half the time. Now it's a good start -- and the first attack is never lethal, especially not when 0 hit points no longer means dead.

In a day and age where Feats and Prestige Classes are playtested and forum-tested to within an inch of their lives, it seems like all choices are "equally valid." That sounds awfully politically correct, doesn't it? Has D&D evolved to reflect the (perhaps unconscious) political values of the recent generation of writers?

I don't think that has anything to do with political values; it's about game design. Choices have costs and benefits, and if a choice is early inferior -- it's "dominated" by another strategy -- then there's no point in including it in the game.

It's fairly easy to judge how dangerous goblins are. A "newb" GM (in any addition) doesn't need CR to tell him that. CR is really useful for "newb" DM's when judging the more dangerous critters. However, was CR necessary because of the advanced level progression? In an older edition where you leveled slowly, the GM would have time to grow into his role and be able to better judge what his party can and cannot handle. Now, with parties leveling every third session, there's no time to adjust. Has D&D evolved to create a generation of GM's that cannot (as) accurately judge threat and ability? Is this the wrong board to be asking this on, since EN World attracts the older crowd?

I think it only makes sense to measure how tough potential foes are, and it only makes sense to use the same scale we use for player characters. "This CR-4 monster is roughly as tough as a typical level-4 character with the expected level of gear."

 

[mmadsen]

I'm not sure if this has been suggested earlier in the thread, but could a 4E based on autogenerating the game work?

Savage Worlds takes a step in that direction with its Plot Point campaigns full of short adventures and adventure-generators.

 

[Scribble]

It also barely mattered, since there were no "10,000 GP = Magic Item of your Choice" rules. You could hand out 100,000 gp (and I did!), and the most it could buy you was a castle and a bunch of men-at-arms to guard it. There was no Magic-Mart. That was cool, but it didn't make you more powerful in the dungeon. The only "unbalancing" treasure was giving out magical items that were too good (guilty of that too, before anyone asks). In that sense the lack of advice made sense.

There's no magic mart in my games either... Sure, I'm guessing some people probably use the "Magic*Mart" approach, but hey when I was a kid we did that in previous editions. We just had to make our own rules for costs and such.

The costs are also useful in my opinion for running games of higher levels. It allows you to equip a higher level character without the DM jhaving to waste time figuring out what's too powerful and such.

Usually not, I agree. In fact, your attitude closely jives with mine. However, some people seem to object to someone else having a "free" rank in Profession (Fishmonger). I wonder if that's healthy. Should there be more freedom in character design, or more equality? I think we have more equality now, at the cost of freedom. Clearly WotC is run by Communists. (just kidding! those guys are so focused on the money they couldn't possibly be Communists.)

I don't really object to a free rank. I object to saying the skill system is bad simply because it doesn't try to truly represent things that will never need to really be represented in the first place.

You have as much freedom as you always did. It's just in this edition, pains are taken to ensure that you don't have that "oh man, this character/game sucks" moment due to the rules as written.

If you want to hack it up and make it work differently you're still free to do so. Despite popular believe Mike Mearls isn't going to roll up to your house and shank you for using instant death attacks... (at least i don't think he will...)

You just shouldn't have to hack the rules just to ensure everyone gets a moment to shine...

Daggers didn't. As for stats, they were lower, but they also didn't really matter "in combat" because the benefit of high stats was an XP bonus, not +X to attack. My point was that a 1-6 sword blow could not drop you to -10. There's a lot more risk now.

But now stats do give bonuses.. Also did they have -10 in the old days? I thought that was a 3e thing (that most of us were doing with house rules?)

Fair point. This is both a business and a game, after all. I just thought it was interesting to observe the evolution from "fair in my opinion" to "fair on paper." After all, some people IRL choose to quit their jobs and work part-time or for lesser pay in exchange for reasons which can't be put down on a character sheet. I had players who occasionally made choices of that nature.

Sure, people are people, and they do weird people things... But again, the rules of the game shouldn't be directly responsible for those choices.

Now here's an attitude that probably deserves its own thread - mainly because I really, really object to it. I hate (note the italics) the idea that a monster should be chosen for it's CR. No, no, no! A monster should be chosen because it fits the story! Full stop.

Sure... Choose them anyway you please. Chose them randomly if you want, or based on what your t-shirt tells you while you're sleeping... I don't care.

My point was, that it allows them to be categorized, which in my opinion is good. (Since this is a game)

Generally I am opposed to anything that hints of "story elements chosen for tactical reasons", because if players want a "all tactics combat fest" there are much better options out there than D&D. A DM needs to play to D&D's strengths.

Send a group of 9th level warriors us against a couple of kobolds, and you have a boring night.

I'd personally never choose a monster solely based on CR, but I will scan lists of CRs within a certain range that meet what I'm looking for.

D&D is a game of both tactics and storytelling. A good DM in my opinion is good at mixing the two. Too far into tactics and you might as well be just war gaming, or DDm or Mage Knight...

Too far into storytelling, and the rules are pointless... Just sit around a campfire. (That has marshmallows!!!)

Mix them both and D&D shines.

A good GM can usually judge that on his own. I think it's a skill that has atrophied from reliance. (Not that that's always a bad thing - Plato was against learning how to read, since it weakened the memory (and he was right about that), but I think we agree that learning to read is a good idea). Whether its been a fair trade off or not, I'm not sure.

Shrug, sure for the most part, a good DM can. But why make it harder for them? Just so you can wear a quirky t-shirt that says "DMs Do it more difficultly?"

Make it easier for me. I have enough to do. I don't write things by hand when I can use a computer.

"Most"? I'm not sure that's true, since they only polled a favored section of the audience. And even if it was "most", it's take the rest of us along with them. OD&D's plethora of house rules meant less consensus - which meant more people were already playing the game they wanted to. Have more current versions of the game incorporated the "best" house rules, pronouncing them "right" and the rest "wrong"?

Not a question of "right or wrong" again you're free to mash it up however you want to. They simp,y made the game work from the start so you don't HAVE to mash it up.

Most maybe was the wrong word... Gamers in general? (as 3e brought a lot of anti-d&ders back into the fold.)

Well, maybe that's too strong. But they're certainly made my job harder. For example, I hate the magical item creation rules (and the close interrelated rules building class balance on presumed items) with the white hot passion of a thousand dying suns. Ergo, introducing that rule into the Core Rules has rendered D&D unplayable for me. Magic swords should MEAN SOMETHING!! WAS EXCALIBUR HANDED OUT BECAUSE ARTHUR WAS 5TH LEVEL???

At least now it HAS item creation rules instead of shadowy (it can be done, but thats all you man...) sort of idea they had in earlier editions...

That turned a lot of people off to the whole game... Now that rules like that are back, more people returned...

I think that some of the 3e changes (not all) have taken the play experience in directions may object to (hence, Diaglo & Friends), and that even if some (or most!) players asked for them, that didn't mean WotC should have complied. WotC's best efforts would have been put to providing the game people actually needed, not the game they thought they wanted. (The preceding statement approved by Henry Ford and Steve Jobs).

There will always be people objecting to change... They like things to stay the same... Shrug... They can still play the old edition.. No one's stopping them.

WOTC changed based on what it saw the majority of people were looking for, or what would bring the majority of people back into the game, thus keeping it alive and running. I fail to see why this is bad... They can't force people to play, and therefore accept whatever the game is currently offering.

They have to make the game what people want to play. If that meant correcting for rules that people thought didn't work, then so be it.

 

[Scribble]

But, most often in my experience, skills don't really provide a challenge for the player.

I don't want myself as the player taken out of the equation. It's not satisfying to me to succeed at something because I sunk enough points into a skill. I want to succeed because of decisions. Decisions I--the player--make, not decisions simulated by my character's skill bonus.

That's not to say that I want to eliminate chance from the game. I want many things to be decided by my decisions alone. For those fewer times when chance is involved, I want the ability to make decisions that will shift the odds in my favor. I want the ability to look for a different solution when I can't tilt the odds comfortably enough in my favor. It should be rare when I really step out on a limb. (Which is important to have on occasion as well.)

How is this different then combat? Combat is decided by your "skill" in attacking plus a random die roll. Skills are the same.

DM's are free to give bonuses do to crafty uses of skills or such. Just give a circumstance bonus.

Sort of a combo of both.

 

[RFisher]

How is this different then combat? Combat is decided by your "skill" in attacking plus a random die roll. Skills are the same.

It's not! Most of what I wrote applies equally to combat, because attack bonus is a skill even if 3e doesn't put it in its "skill" system. But it is interesting to look at how the use of combat skills often differs from the use of other skills.

Failing a single combat skill check usually doesn't mean total failure in the combat. It means only a minor setback. (You failed to damage your opponent for one round.) Failing a single jump, balance, craft, or knowledge check can mean falling to your death, ruining a creation (& loss of the 100% of the time & money spent on the attempt), or complete ignorance of an important fact. (Of course, the important word there is "can".)

During combat, not only do you make several combat skill checks, but you have decision points between them. You have the chance to refine your tactics based on new information & unexpected developments. You can correct mistakes. You can thus continue to tilt the odds in your favor. You can choose to cut your losses. With a "one roll task", you have to make all the right decisions up-front.

Combine the "one roll task" with the tendency to set difficulties, IMHO, too high too often; & you get a session that consists mostly of PCs failing tasks with no partial credit. And the players feeling more out-of-control because of the one-decision-point→one-roll→total-success-or-total-failure model.

Note, I'm not claiming this is the fault of 3e. I'm saying that these are trends I've noticed under many systems. The expansion of skill systems have generally not meant new challenges for the players, but rather the PCs seeming more & more incompetent. If you haven't seen even a hint of these problems at your table, bully for you. But this is something I have seen.

So, what should I do about this?

• Set lower difficulties
• The more peripheral a skill is to the focus of the current campaign, the more I should consider making success/failure be more GM fiat than a roll. (Predisposed towards success.) Thus, I may--may--want to drop the skill completely. (Skill levels can be handy for informing GM fiat even if you never call for a check against it.)
• If the skill isn't peripheral, consider using more of an "extended task" model like combat. (Not a new idea there, but very seldom applied in my experience.)
• Give partial credit on "one roll tasks". Consider using adequate-success/exceptional-success rather than success/failure.
• Do something along the lines of Tweet's "there is no try" article: Failing a roll means that the PC knows not to attempt the task. There should probably be a minor setback associated with this. (Like losing your action for that round.) Also, I like the idea of giving the PC a karma/action/drama/fate/whatever point if the player chooses to go ahead & have the PC actually fail after a failed roll. This is something I hope to try next time I GM.

Note that some of my fixes don't require changing mechanics, just how you use the mechanics. (So, arguably, these aren't problems with the rules but problems with their application.)

 

[RFisher]

Another point: Before the expansion of skill systems, resolving tasks outside of combat or magic often involved a sort of negotiation between the player & the GM. This was more like the "extended task" model than the "one-roll" model. At least, that's what happened in my groups.

I think there is a middle ground of negotiation + one-roll that works fine. I'm just most interested right now in re-examing the older way of doing things now that I & the people I play with are wiser & more mature than my old high school group.

 

[mmadsen]

The expansion of skill systems have generally not meant new challenges for the players, but rather the PCs seeming more & more incompetent.

Very well said.