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: 3793455" data-attributes="member: 42582">As it happens I share your playing preferences. But I don't really feel them to be old-school preferences (I don't mean for that to be an offensive remark, so I hope it's not - I've already tried to indicate what I mean by "old-school"). Introducing those sorts of world-building constraints is what made systems like RM or RQ attractive as alternatives to AD&D.In any sort of play, even the most hardcore simulationist RQ or RM, the player ultimately has to make a decision which is not determined by the action resolution mechanics - otherwise the game would just be character building, with the actual adventure unfolding by rolling the dice.So the difference between AD&D and RQ/RM has to be found in the point at which the decisions are made. While admitting that it is all a matter of degree, I think there is a difference between the two approaches to play. White Plume Mountain, for example, makes sense as a 1st ed module, because it has lots of wacky rooms that require player ingenuity to sort out. In RQ or RM it would degenerate into a series of skill checks. I haven't read Dungeonscape, but I gather that the encounter traps there are designed to make that series of skill checks interesting in the same way that a series of attack rolls is interesting in a typical combat. To my mind this is different from "old school", and getting mechanically closer to games like HeroQuest and The Dying Earth which have universal action resolution systems for all conflicts.Hence the tediousness, for many of us, of playing out Tomb of Horrors as written . . .Now that's what I want to hear!I agree with this. Thus, I don't think "old-school" is such a good business model, because all it sells are adventures (which only the GM buys).At levels above 1st or 2nd the crossbow is probably not all that effective, but at low levels it is a viable option, I agree (though flavour considerations would lead me to prefer a "wizard's ray" ranged but not touch attack for 1d6 hits).But the moving for position and tactical advice just aren't very viable in 3E, I feel. In the first case, it takes too long for you turn to come back around, so it is more fun to actually do something. In the second case, battle mat play means that everyone at the table is giving tactical advice so there is nothing special for the wizard player in having his or her PC do this.In 1st ed the time per round is reduced because action resolution is simpler, so the waiting is less pronounced (but still potentially an issue).My view is that there is a non-coincidental connection between AD&D and this sort of GMing - because the absence of action resolution rules makes so much turn on the players' capacity to impress the GM with their ingenuity, the game is particularly vulnerable to a collapse into player vs GM. 3E, with its extensive mechanics, I feel has less of a systemic vulnerability in this respect.</blockquote>

Verification