Whatever happened to the 1st Edition Basic DND Mentality?

[Kahuna Burger]

When it comes to D&D, my DMing motto is: "Games, not stories."

I provide obstacles and challenges---but I avoid plots like the plague. Nothing glazes a player's eyes as fast as realizing that his DM is trying to lead him through a story.

ps. When I play, the only character development I care about is when I level.

I think there is an error here where people are conflating having a story with railroading. having a story just means that there is a greater context to the little episodes of game, a context which will continue to evolve whether the characters do anything about it or not, but which they are going to have the oppertunity to effect. Railroading in when players have no real choice but to take on the challange presented, in a specific way, right now... I hate railroading, but a game with no story would bore the hell out of me (and a character who is totally uneffected by their expereince except fora steady progression of stats might as well be a videogame, but thats another issue).

the last major game I ran had a story. The river that the characters lived on (literaly ON, Fallstown was a fun concept) had disapeared. The two sides just pulled together like a hidden zipper on each bank had been closed. There was a reason, and a story behind it, but the characters were 1st level and it would be a LONG time before that story would be of direct interest to them. Still, they started up the path of where the river had been, hoping to find some clue. They had a lot of "encounters", and they had a lot of choices about what to do and where to go, but there were big changes happening in the world whether they were involved in them or not, and the disapearance of a river is a major story. They chose to become involved in that story, marking out the former boundry between testy neighbors, rescuing stranded travelers, following what had been the river, delivering some mail for small change... They didn't have to and I would have followed the characters where they went rather than forcing them to follow any specific plot, but I can't say anyone's eyes "glazed over" when they realized that they wouldn't be wandering aimlessly through unrelated fights, taking things' stuff and leveling up...

I guess there's always a story even if its "A bunch of guys with adult ADD and big swords do whatever they think of at the moment and shenanigans ensue..." The question is if the story makes any sense in retrospect, if its a collection of unrelated eposodic stories, or if its a series of fights, wackiness, wachiness induced fights and lusty tavern wenches. Or, to put it another way, if you are running Babylon 5, Star Trek or Futurama? I'm not so much for futurama, but I like to know that the "arc" for a bab5 game isn't set in stone as to how exactly it will be resolved.

thats about it for me, I guess.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Geoff Watson]

Nostalgia.

You forget the bad things (unless they were really bad), and remember the good things.

Geoff.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I agree that a lot of the imaginative qualities have disappeared as the rules have become more defined.
I have run into this alot:
PC1: I want to jump over the railing of the balcony and land on the horse below
DM: Make a jump check to clear the railing, DC=15. Make a charge attack on the horse with a -4 penalty. Then make a modified grapple attack on the horse, you have to beat a 35 or else it bucks you off. Now make a Ride check, DC=65.

...

Or similar. It sucks, but with so many rules built to encompass every move ability and skill there is in a game world, it's hard to make your own moves. That's why OD&D was the best. If there was any question, you made an ability check; if you didn't like it and were 1st level, you died. Simple. No feats. No skills with goofy interpretations.

Which is just a fancy way of saying that DMs were never jerks and mommy gave us poptarts in the Good Old Days.

My experience is different. I find 3.0/3.5 is liberating and rich in ways previous editions were not. Not that I didn't have fun, at first. But I found the old gaming days were quickly dissatisfying. Perhaps if I could have seen a good DM in action it would have been different.

 

[Ottergame]

There are rules to cover a lot more actions in D&D now so that DMs don't (have to) randomly pull some assinine rule from their nether regions when you asked to do something more complicated than swing your sword randomly.

"Yeah, attack their shield? Umm, ok, make a attack roll at AC -10 to hit it and do more than 50 points of damage in a single attack."

 

[s/LaSH]

Yeah, I like completer rulesets. That way, if something unexpected comes up (and it will), you've got more examples of things from which to extrapolate, and my judgement calls will likely be very similar to your judgement calls.

But plot freedom? Depends. Right now I like the drama that a good plot can evoke. I might just enjoy playing around in a plotless game, of course, but I haven't played in so long...

 

[Desdichado]

My experience is different. I find 3.0/3.5 is liberating and rich in ways previous editions were not. Not that I didn't have fun, at first. But I found the old gaming days were quickly dissatisfying. Perhaps if I could have seen a good DM in action it would have been different.

Yep, yep, that's me too. My first reaction to the first post was, "the reason I don't play that way anymore is because I grew up and found out that it only entertained me on a quite juvenile level to play that way." However, it sounds like I may not be reading enough into it; we still have quite free-form and "free" games in terms of what we can do, we just elect not to do stupid, juvenile stuff anymore.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I think it is more that we have changed, not the game. We are the ones who limit ourselves, because we know the possible consequences, so we don't risk it.

You really want to re-live those old memories? Try DMing a bunch of newbies, especially young ones.

Or run in a game with a newbie GM.

A few months ago we had a player who wanted to take a shot at it. We created normal 4th-level characters. The first encounter was in a tavern, where Tiamat found us and forced us to sign contracts (in blood) to fight for her. Her opponents? A bunch of supervillains from another dimension stealing dragon eggs for power. We fought intelligent skeletons, Magneto, Dr. Octopus, Transformers, a kraken (kind of). We found +5 weapons after our first fight, as well as +5 armor, including Padded +5, +10 to Charisma (my sorcerer was happy ). Meanwhile, we coerced the tavern owner into signing the tavern over to us, or else, and later refused to return his family's powerful heirloom. The game was a complete railroad, and application of the 3E rules was inconsistent at best.

The GM stopped after a few sessions due to lack of time, but boy did it bring back the memories...

 

[Ferox4]

Sadly, it's on the bookshelf w/ my 1E Fiend Folio......

 

[Ferox4]

"What's your THAC0?"

 

[D+1]

This brought back memories of my first DND games and campaign. It wasn't "story" driven and didn't have "character development", but these were some of the best times I had playing DND. I believe what I miss, was the whole feeling of being able to play a game where you could virtually do almost "anything" you wanted.

D&D, and indeed all RPG's, are no better than the DM that runs them. A bad DM can take the penultimate rules and waste everyones time. A good DM can take virtually any ruleset and run a game that will be enjoyable and interesting. Your experience here has nothing to do with the rules being used themselves, but with HOW they're being used. There's nothing in 3E/3.5 that prevents or even discourages running a free-form, open-ended campaign any more than any previous version. If anything it encourages it like no previous edition has by enabling all manner of refinements and changes to be worked into the system with the least amount of fuss and bother.

Two things have changed over the years that have brought you to your current position. First, although free-wheeling sorts of campaigns are no less enjoyable it has become fashionable to scorn such games and those who play them. Story, which in the early days of RPG's was often thin or non-existent, has now perhaps swung too far to where it's now OVER-emphasized. The game became what it is today more through ROLLplaying than ROLEplaying. While the improvement to the gaming experience through more sophisticated roleplaying cannot be overlooked there are those who seek to eliminate as much of the "game" portion of "roleplaying game" as is possible. For those of use who still enjoy the "game" as much as the "roleplaying" it's as easy a problem to fix as shouting "Screw this! I'm gonna roll dice at something!"

Second, as game design has improved and the years have rolled by, established campaign worlds have become extraordinarly... complete... structured. The number of home-brewed campaign worlds have shrunk and the older the published game world the greater the depth of its description. And they are ALL designed from top down, instead of bottom up which is the method least conducive to making adjustments to the setting at will. And all that compiled information on a given game world tends to discourage DM's in their creativity in exchange for alleviating the burdens of time and effort otherwise needed to create and maintain the campaign world. As your observation suggests - and I would agree - this has NOT been a good thing.

The GAME is not actively stifling creativity but DM's and players are FAR less obligated to exercise their creativity as they once were because there's such a well-developed crutch and support system for them to lean on.