Trimmin da fat

[jmucchiello]

That's not D&D. That's let's sit around and make up a story. I could see doing that if everyone was drunk maybe.

D&D is a fixed ruleset that is known by all the players, a universal way to determine the outcome of actions (dice), and immersion into a character and a story (role-playing).

There was no imbibing and it was not let's sit around and make up a story. It played exactly like any other D&D session I've been involved with.

Fixed ruleset? DM fiat. This does not mean widely varying from moment to moment. There was strict consistency. In fact, there were rules. Only I could see them.

Universal randomization? Actually I used a d10 for randomness occasionally.

Immersion? With no character sheet to distract you and no "sorry the rules don't let you do that", immersion I would say was higher than in normal D&D.

If you were to read a transcript of our sessions, the only thing that might stand out is that no one ever said the words "hit points" or "armor class". But a group of adventurers travelling to a village and solving someone's problem? How is that not D&D?

 

[Umbran]

1. AoO: I think a DM judgement call on a free attack is enough.

And, for many combats, that is sufficient. It is only in complicated combats where the battlemat is a help rather than a hindrance that you really need the AoO. Unless, of course, your group likes battlemaps and minis, in general.

2. CR's it's still a guesstimating game so why not just state it upfront and maybe have guidelines on what to look for instead of a formula and rating system that don't really work.

First, they do state up front that the things are only guidelines. Second - the guidelines for what to look for would be reeeeaaaallllyyyy loooooonnnnnnngggg. The point of the CR system is to save you time and effort by guiving you some benchmarks.

 

[Laman Stahros]

I started playing (Dming actually) with 1e. I prefer having all of these written guidlines. In 1e, most things were done by Dm fiat and it made my job tougher. Having written guidelines that I can point to and say "those are the rules that I am using" makes it easier for me so that I can concentrate on the story rather than rule questions.

 

[Dykstrav]

I started playing (Dming actually) with 1e. I prefer having all of these written guidlines. In 1e, most things were done by Dm fiat and it made my job tougher. Having written guidelines that I can point to and say "those are the rules that I am using" makes it easier for me so that I can concentrate on the story rather than rule questions.

I've seen players coming into 3E straight from 1E that were very upset with the game specifically because of the comprehensive nature of the rules. Alot of 1E players got off on trying to "break" the game by doing things not covered in the rules... For example, I had someone get very upset because 3E actually had rules for trip attacks. This chump apparently was once a master of talking the DM into letting him trip and lasso critters by running a rope between two PCs because the old rules systems never explicity stated that it couldn't be done and had no concrete, universal rules for trip attacks.

So is there such a thing as an "official" D&D? Only for stuff like Living Greyhawk, tournament modules, and such like.

But as I get older and I find my time and interest in changing everything dwindling, I am certainly starting to gravitate toward a "standard" D&D game. If for nothing else than I like the idea of being able to make a character and play without having to read someone's ever-changing homebrew in addition to the core rulebooks.

But since the core rulebooks are already pretty sparse anyway (and I mean in the fluff sense, it's almost all rules and procedures in the three core rulebooks), I don't know how much of it you can really trim when it gets down to the brass tacks.

 

[+5 Keyboard!]

The type of actions characters can take has become excessively fat, so if some needs trimming I would start there. A standard action, move action, and free action would be all I'd like to see in the game. In addition, of course, to things that are considered "not an action", ya know like, grunting or squealing like a pig when you get your arm eaten off by a monster or something

I'm otherwise quite happy with the rules set as is. I think the designers could have easily made things much more complex, but they tried to simplify things down as much as possible. Lately, I think a few of those guys are giving into the temptation to introduce more and more unneeded complexities to the game, by creating subsets to skills and new action types designed for spellcasters.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If you can't trust your DM enough to let him handwave and use fiat, you shouldn't be letting him DM.