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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 5057436" data-attributes="member: 3192">AD&D is not a combat simulation game.  It is a roleplaying game.  If you attempt to make it a simulation game, then you get 4e DDM.  The 4e RPG is a small storygame RPG. It is a different category of game than AD&D, one which uses a different definition of roleplaying.  Within the 4e storygame rules is a siloed off card-based, miniatures combat game.  This is most of the rules.  These are rightly balanced as a simulation game, but it is not a roleplaying game.  It is a poor combat game as it is neither a competitive game nor a cooperation game, but a game of enforced cooperation.  If you steal from or kill your fellow PCs, there is no penalty or reward.  I can choose to play as badly as I wish in this simulation game and I will still be rewarded if everyone else plays well.  This is bad cooperation game design.  All my comments were in regards to the cooperation aspect of the game, about how cooperation is meaningless within it because there is no choice but to cooperate.  It is a rule telling me how I must play a simulation game meant for competition rather than one letting me follow the rules and end up winning or losing based upon the strategies I use.  The "Lord of the Rings" boardgame should be a primer for RPG designers as almost every storygame is now designed as enforced "cooperation" games.   How on earth can you tell if a person is following the rule "cooperate"?? It is a bad rule and only bad games include it.Honestly, out of combat it varies virtually not at all.  If a DM uses rules so every PC has the same number of skill points, then there is virtually no variation in the game at all.  It becomes the skill challenge game of guess a option from the list and hope it's a low DC for your roll.  Guess which ones I will always guess first?  The ones I have the highest number and I'll work down from there.  Any other strategy is a poorer one.  If I can use the same skill more than once, guess what? I will now explode to the maximum one skill and always use it whenever a skill check or Skill Challenge occurs.Moreover, far worse the game gives a choice to the DM enabling him or her to penalize or benefit individual players as they see fit.  This is a +2 or -2 whenever they want on whomever the want. I don't like Bob, so he gets a -2 on every roll.  My girlfriend? She gets a +2 on every roll.  There is no rule against this, simply advice that a DM should not play the p.42 game according to their own desires.  Personally, that's horrible game design. It is sheer player fiat built in for one player to give other players a bad day.  Games requiring players to not play within the full scope of the rules, but rather asks them to always play a certain strategy otherwise the game will not be "fun" are bad games.  Page 42 removes impartiallity from the DM role and is built in discrimination.Thank god AD&D does not expect anyone but the fighter classes to excel in combat.  It means they actually included more game for those who don't care for combat.  If you don't want fighters in your game you can drop the combat system from AD&D and still play.  I mean, no class is designed to excel at combat in AD&D other than the fighter classes. They are the only reason this system is in there. This is a good thing.  Otherwise other classes can make another class irrelevant.  A roleplaying game with multiple classes needs niche protection.  In 4e, all characters are fighters.  And all characters may be wizards too, if they have the spellcasting feat.  Clerics have been removed from the game completely.Almost everything you say here is about simulation games, not RPGs.  In regards to character versus player challanges, all games are player challenges.  Characters can not be challenged.  They do not exist.  If something in a game occurs without human intervention, then it is not part of the game.  It is simply art on the gameboard.  Players don't play Agricola because they like farming.  Farming is just color.  In a roleplaying game where one can play the role of farmer, then farming is the entire scope of the game for players in that role. Garmon, it sounds like you have a DM who is cheating. A DM has no choices at the game table.  If they did, then they would be neither impartial nor a referee. For running more than one PC at the same time, that is certainly okay, but it is not the norm.  It is like making "Lord of the Rings" a one-player, single perspective game.  It is possible, but then cooperation between those characters is irrelevant because it is all just one person. It stops being a cooperation game as a person cannot choose to cooperate with his or her self. Cooperation games require multiple players and in an RPG the referee doesn't count. They never cooperate.The point in the text of mine you quoted is that individual choices are not rewarded as all rewards are received collectively no matter how any one individual plays.  That is the context of the last sentence and refers to how cooperation can be made meaningless as in many current RPGs.  See the first paragraph of this post for more info.</blockquote>

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