Why do we have such different experiences?

[Hussar]

Ok, I know, the simple answer is, "Cos we like different things, stupid". Fair enough. But, I think there may be more to it than that. When we start talking about our 3e experiences, it becomes very readily apparent that despite the rather high level of rules standardization that came with d20, we can have very radically different opinions of what goes on at a "regular" game.

Some time ago, I did a similar thing with the CR/EL system. I noticed that there were a number of posters who had very different experiences with the system than I did. I like the CR/EL system. Stop laughing. Really I do. I find that it works most of the time for me. It's certainly not perfect, but, it does work. But, for a number of other people, I saw claims that they regularly ran combats five or six EL's above the party level, that CR's were basically meaningless and they eyeballed everything. So, I did a bit of digging, asked around the collective wisdom of En World and came up with a list of Factors that affect CR and EL It provided a nice little troubleshooting list to help me help others who were having trouble with EL/CR.

So, I'm wondering if we could do the same sort of thing for a wider question. What factors generally have the biggest effect on people's 3e experiences? I'll start off with a few and see where this goes.

1. Major changes in the wealth/level system. This, I think more than anything else, has a huge impact on how people view 3e. If you played roughly by the book - wealth by level that's fairly close to the baseline, magic items are reasonably easily purchased that sort of thing, you are going to have a very, very different experience with 3e than if you played fast and loose with wealth by level or (IMO more commonly) made the trade in magic items much more difficult, if not outright impossible.

2. Using modules. This goes all the way back to any edition. One thing I've noticed when people talk about 1e, is that people like me who played a lot of modules have an entirely different view of 1e than people who didn't. I think that in 3e this applies as well. When people talk about how their combats regularly feature large numbers of opponents, for example, it's pretty clear that they're not playing modules. Which leads into my third point-

3. Using classed humanoids as opponents. If you used classed humanoids primarily as opponents instead of monsters in your game, you will have entirely different experiences than someone who used mostly monsters. Things like disarm, for example, become an actually viable tactic. You cannot disarm a behir. OTOH, the big assed monster grapplers don't become such an issue if you don't use them. And at high levels, it seems like every bloody big monster has improved grab.

That's my starter list. Whatcha think? Am I way off base? Oh, and before I forget, let me add a disclaimer here:

*****Disclaimer: I am in no way, shape, or form making any claims as to the superiority of one playstyle or another. I make no value judgements whatsoever. Any value judgements you glean from what I've written above exist entirely in your own mind and are certainly not intentional. I PLAY 3e. I LIKE 3e. I am NOT BASHING 3e. Any insult, condescension, snark or whatever else you are feeling put out by are completely and utterly unintended.******************

 

[Imaro]

Hey Hussar, not sure how well these two fit into your discussion but how about...

1. The experience level and "casualness" of your players. Most of my players were the type who didn't really optimize or study the books outside of the game session and/or the day we usually put aside to level up, thus I didn't really run into problems with CoDzilla or casters that dominated everything or anything along those lines with 3.x. My players built their characters the way they wanted, and this in turn informed me about the type, difficulty, etc... of challenges they wanted to face.

2. (Expounding a little further on your modules vs. homebrew adventures)... I think DM's who consciously tailored their adventures to their party's strengths and or weaknesses probably had a vastly different experience than those who ran something like the AP's from Dungeon. I also think doing this helps to minimize the "spotlight" problem the "15 min adventuring day problem" as well as others that are routinely cited.

Of course this is just my opinion, and YMMV.

 

[Hussar]

Good points both. I'd totally agree with that.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Now this is an interesting topic. Because I wonder about it myself sometimes. People play the same game and come to different conclusions. How can it be? What do they do differently?

- Where is the focus of the game?
Sometimes it seems everyone things D&D is all about killing monsters and taking their stuff, but actually a lot of people use the game very differently! People that fight only once per game session and fill the rest with player/player and player/NPC or player/world interaction will probably never see much problems in combat. Is it too simple? No problem, it's just once per session. It's to complex, no problem, that's why we play it only once per session. Unbalanced classes - again, once per session? Barely noticeable or reason for worries.
Profession useless and taking away from the "real" skills? Certainly not if 75 % of my session involves non-combat activity!

 

[roguerouge]

Variability of play style: Because 3E at least tries to have a rule for every occasion, more styles of play are supported. So if you want to play Masquerades and Machinations, you can do that; if you prefer Miniatures and Monsters, you can do that. In the former, the diplomacy rules are important; in the latter, it doesn't matter how well or poorly made they are. In the former, CoDzilla is irrelevant, while bards and rogues shine; in the latter, beware CoDzilla and bards are weak.

Deep Space Nine vs. A Team: if your campaign features one setting and thus limits the opponents, then some classes (rangers) and skills (like knowledge: local) become more important. Players can also specialize their builds better with a general knowledge of what kind of opponents, terrain, and resources will be available to them. If they know that they're always going to be in a forest, then certain classes leap to the fore, while if they're always going to be in a city, the other classes work better. Heck, the aristocrat becomes viable if you never stray far from their center of social power. But if the A Team is your campaign model, however, then your builds have to emphasize flexibility and you have to be able to cover your weaknesses. If you face a wide variety of monsters, that low will save or grapple check will come back to haunt you eventually. So you start allocating resources, feats, and skill tricks to covering for your weaknesses.

 

[S'mon]

Level played at makes a huge difference in 3e. In 1e-2e, many people didn't like play over ca 10th level, but the game was really built around levels 1-9 anyway. 3e was supposedly built for the full 1-20 spread, yet again many people had problems over ca 10th level, while those who never got above 9th never experienced that, but the latter group is relatively much smaller than with 1e-2e.

 

[Mallus]

When we start talking about our 3e experiences, it becomes very readily apparent that despite the rather high level of rules standardization that came with d20, we can have very radically different opinions of what goes on at a "regular" game.

I think the best answer to this is also, unfortunately, the most general. D&D, like other broad RPG, is more of a toolkit for building games than a game itself. Give different people a set of tools and raw materials and you'll find that a) they use the tools differently, b) at varying levels of proficiency, and c) they end up build different things.

 

[Hussar]

I think the best answer to this is also, unfortunately, the most general. D&D, like other broad RPG, is more of a toolkit for building games than a game itself. Give different people a set of tools and raw materials and you'll find that a) they use the tools differently, b) at varying levels of proficiency, and c) they end up build different things.

Well, yes and no. Sure, if I give you a hammer, some nails, a saw and some wood, you could make all sorts of different things. But, the process by which you make those things are likely going to be pretty similar to everyone else. Just because you make a table and I make a chair, there aren't going to be radical differences in our views of the tools.

The "toolkit" view of the rules is certainly true. There are just so many rules out there. But, really, most of them don't seem to come up too often when we talk about our experiences. Sure, I may use Race X and PRC Y, but, that doesn't seem to be where the differences lie. That I use Tome of Magic and Bloggins uses the Book of Erotic Fantasy doesn't seem to be the main source of differences between views of the game.

OTOH, I can certainly see your point though. Because D&D is a fairly generic game - little or no implied setting (or implied setting that's pretty easily ignored) - the individual campaigns that we create will vary wildly. It would be odd to see someone talking about how their Traveller characters defeated Lolth. It's not so odd to see someone talking about how their Barbarians trashed weird robot dudes.

 

[Reynard]

I think one of the other important aspects is how people came to the game. Those that started with 3E probably have pretty different experiences than those that started with BECMI (me!) or 1E or 2E, and people that came in from different games entirely (Vampire players migrating to D&D with 3E, frex) also had a different experience. The toolkit idea is a valid one, but where we took our apprenticeship is going to have a big impact on what we are going to try and build.

I never really encountered the big complaints regarding 3E that led to many of 4E's design changes simply because I did my best to run 3E the same way as I had always run D&D -- sandboxy, emergent story, player centric fantasy adventure with equal doses of gritty and epic. I would run into a wall every once in a while, of course, but overall I was most successful when I just did what I do behind the screen and relaxed a little. At the same time, though, players that really embraced builds or square-counting kind of disrupted my mojo.

I am just now embarking on a personal quest to do 4E like I do D&D and see if it works. If not, there's a half dozen other versions of D&D I can fall back on, but it'd be nice if I could keep current.

 

[DonAdam]

3. Using classed humanoids as opponents. If you used classed humanoids primarily as opponents instead of monsters in your game, you will have entirely different experiences than someone who used mostly monsters. Things like disarm, for example, become an actually viable tactic. You cannot disarm a behir. OTOH, the big assed monster grapplers don't become such an issue if you don't use them. And at high levels, it seems like every bloody big monster has improved grab.

This is huge, because classed monsters didn't have the built-in bonuses from magic items. So absent good guidelines for changing saves, AC, etc., you were left with a dilemma: give out too much treasure, or have easily killable opponents.

Since I ran a campaign with primarily classed opponents, this came up again and again.