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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9612514" data-attributes="member: 6877472">In fairness to Lanefan and Micah, I've seen their point in action.&nbsp; AD&amp;D is rife with rules that simply got ignored or scaled back because people didn't care for them.&nbsp; More favorable character generation, death at -10 hit points, max hit points at first level, softening demihuman level limits; these were all things I saw quite often!DM's who preferred letter of the law, hardball gaming where you struggled to survive and earned few rewards were rarely well-regarded.&nbsp; You put up with them because, well, in our foolish bliss, we thought even bad D&amp;D was better than no D&amp;D, but you eventually tired of having to fight tooth and nail for any semblance of success as an adventurer.A high mortality rate and meager rewards might be more realistic, but I don't know many people who play D&amp;D for the realism- people who wanted that seemed to gravitate towards other games.&nbsp; Or stick to their heavily house-ruled older versions of D&amp;D, and in both cases, scoff at us younger players for not being able to handle &quot;real gaming&quot;, lol.How favorable D&amp;D's rules are to players has waxed and waned over the years, but in general, it has seemed to become less concerned with high risk, low reward playstyles.&nbsp; I can understand why, to people who like that sort of thing, why it feels that D&amp;D is leaving them behind.Why?&nbsp; I have no hard data.&nbsp; But it seems to me that the playerbase itself has changed, and WotC is simply trying to adapt to what they think that base wants, without fully committing to anything, so as not to ostracize any particular subset of that base.This unfortunately doesn't do anything to fully satisfy the extreme edges of the player base at large.&nbsp; The people who want Harry Potter Wizards and Shonen Fighters, yelling out the names of their attacks and mowing down foes left and right aren't really being better served than the people who want a 13th-level Ranger foraging for food in the wilderness and engaging in ruthless survival challenges straight out of a Jack London story.Even if it leans towards one direction more, the modern game isn't going to fully commit to either, for risk of hemorrhaging players en masse to seek out systems more to their liking.Which just leads to a lot of spirited debates about &quot;what D&amp;D is&quot;.&nbsp; The game tries to have it both ways, having &quot;old school&quot; dungeon crawling and exploration, while happily including all the various ways players can easily opt out of such challenges.&nbsp; It espouses a rapid advancement rate so players can eventually see those dizzying heights of power- far too fast for most DM's to keep up.&nbsp; Classes that lack full casting don't really get a lot of major power upgrades, however, as the game is fairly flattened- many high level abilities don't really feel that powerful.&nbsp; Conversely, full casters still get regularly fed a major jump in power ever two levels, because anything else apparently doesn't &quot;feel like D&amp;D&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9612514, member: 6877472"] In fairness to Lanefan and Micah, I've seen their point in action. AD&D is rife with rules that simply got ignored or scaled back because people didn't care for them. More favorable character generation, death at -10 hit points, max hit points at first level, softening demihuman level limits; these were all things I saw quite often! DM's who preferred letter of the law, hardball gaming where you struggled to survive and earned few rewards were rarely well-regarded. You put up with them because, well, in our foolish bliss, we thought even bad D&D was better than no D&D, but you eventually tired of having to fight tooth and nail for any semblance of success as an adventurer. A high mortality rate and meager rewards might be more realistic, but I don't know many people who play D&D for the realism- people who wanted that seemed to gravitate towards other games. Or stick to their heavily house-ruled older versions of D&D, and in both cases, scoff at us younger players for not being able to handle "real gaming", lol. How favorable D&D's rules are to players has waxed and waned over the years, but in general, it has seemed to become less concerned with high risk, low reward playstyles. I can understand why, to people who like that sort of thing, why it feels that D&D is leaving them behind. Why? I have no hard data. But it seems to me that the playerbase itself has changed, and WotC is simply trying to adapt to what they think that base wants, without fully committing to anything, so as not to ostracize any particular subset of that base. This unfortunately doesn't do anything to fully satisfy the extreme edges of the player base at large. The people who want Harry Potter Wizards and Shonen Fighters, yelling out the names of their attacks and mowing down foes left and right aren't really being better served than the people who want a 13th-level Ranger foraging for food in the wilderness and engaging in ruthless survival challenges straight out of a Jack London story. Even if it leans towards one direction more, the modern game isn't going to fully commit to either, for risk of hemorrhaging players [I]en masse[/I] to seek out systems more to their liking. Which just leads to a lot of spirited debates about "what D&D is". The game tries to have it both ways, having "old school" dungeon crawling and exploration, while happily including all the various ways players can easily opt out of such challenges. It espouses a rapid advancement rate so players can eventually see those dizzying heights of power- far too fast for most DM's to keep up. Classes that lack full casting don't really get a lot of major power upgrades, however, as the game is fairly flattened- many high level abilities don't really feel that powerful. Conversely, full casters still get regularly fed a major jump in power ever two levels, because anything else apparently doesn't "feel like D&D". [/QUOTE]

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