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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3788383" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm pretty confident that this won't happen.As I said in my earlier post, the authority of the GM in AD&D is a consequence of the fact that the mechanics play very little role in the AD&D play experience - character build is a non-event, and action resolution not much more (except for 1st ed DMG non-lethal combat). It is all about the players grappling with the challenges posed by the GM, and the GM deciding whether or not the players' ingenuity will be rewarded. This is demonstrated by the fact that the "playing the game" section of the PHB is devoted primarily to effective techniques of dungeon exploration.4e, on the other hand, will continue 3e's emphasis on character build (and will increase it, by putting race into the mix in a more complicated way) and action resolution systems (which will also become more intricate, with the changes to resource management for all classes). The mechanics will therefore continue to be at the centre of the play experience. In such a system, the GM will never have the same role as that conferred by AD&D.Again, a system with the mechanical emphases of 3E/4e will not support old-school play. Old-school play is about the players planning their expedition, equipping their characters with iron spikes, using their own knowledge of the dungeon environment, deciding when to use their (sparse) resources and when to run away.4e will continue to emphasise character build and resolution of character actions. In such a system, the players optimise their characters and the use of their skills. When it comes to success on an expedition, it is the character who makes the in-game decisions, while the player simply refers to ranks in Search or Survival or Knowledge (Dungeoneering).The new social mechanics will probably complete this transformation, by turning social interaction - the last sphere of play in which many people still use an old-style approach - in to a sphere in which success, for the players, will depend upon build optimisation and effective use of the action resolution mechanics.</blockquote>

Verification