Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 5008131" data-attributes="member: 21169">I think that mostly comes down to whether a group has one, or multiple, GMs. I've always (I started rpging in '82) been in groups with multiple GMs, and also played lots of different rpgs, which mostly lack a PHB/DMG distinction, just having one rulebook.If there's only one GM then I can see how a group can have a very different dynamic. The GM could retain a lot more 'mystique' and, as a result, wield a lot more power, than in groups where anyone can do it, where the mystery has been dispelled.A lot more time has passed since the days of 1e, a lot more of us have tried our hand at GMing. There are probably far fewer groups now with a single GM.Part of it is the internet, yeah. Partly it's a move by publishers towards producing products that players will buy. You can see that very clearly in the 2e era, with the likes of the Complete Class/Race Handbooks. Vampire was the same, with its clanbooks, in fact they may have been the inspiration for the 2e splats. 3e just continued that trend. My personal experience, playing 2e in the early 90s, is that there was a huge desire, and ability, to optimize.I also recall optimizing in 1e, by cheating on my die rolls and reading the module. I actually only read the 1e DMG after we'd stopped playing D&D, but I was able to optimize plenty without it. Another method in those days would be to persuade the DM to use unbalanced rules from magazines such as Dragon and White Dwarf. There was a ludicrously unbalanced assassin power up in early WD which a player in my social circle liked to use.Point based systems such as Champions also allow for mucho optimization. In fact there was an article in Champions II, published in 1982, explaining how to do it, called the Goodman School of Cost Effectiveness.What I'm saying is, I'm not seeing this huge watershed in optimization between the pre-3e/pre-WWW era and after. The groups I've been in have always had knowledgeable, determined, min-maxers. And the knowledge has always been out there, not just in the DMG, but elsewhere.</blockquote>

Verification