Why I don't play D&D anymore

[gizmo33]

(I still don't want to hear about elven wizard/paladins. But on to the thread...)

The OP is one of those posts where I suspect that a specific incident is really underlying the issue, and that it has been over-generalized. Is there any point in responding with ideas about how to run a mystery game if this is really about encounters/day?

The encounters/day thing, you would think, works like this - if 1 monster is too weak for the party, and 8 are too strong, then something in the middle is just right. It doesn't matter how much equipment PCs have - give a bunch of 1st level characters +5 weapons and it's still true. It's just basic math (or maybe advanced math, depending on how rigorous you want to be about continuity).

So I guess you're talking about everybody getting equal "time to shine" - so that supposedly a character who gets d4s for hitpoints (the psion) is dominating during combat while the fighter (d10s) is not. Is the psion hiding behind the fighter the whole time in combat? Is everybody 16th level? I would think that a character with d4s for hitpoints would be pretty vulnerable at earlier levels. I don't know anything about psions other than what I read in the SRD.

Somehow, I guess, taking four encounters that would be spread out throughout the day, and smooshing them into one big encounter is an advantage for the psion? I would put my money on the guy with the d10 hitpoints because the d4 guy is going to need healing. Plus there are situations, especially in the wilderness, where traps, scouts, skirmishers, etc. would lead off an encounter - it's such a wide-open subject that I can't see how you can argue for any one "reality" in DnD. And 4 encounters is hardly a "crawl".

Regarding the "they don't care about +1 swords with names and histories" thing. Well, nobody does. That's why Excalibur isn't a +1 sword. Merlin didn't say "hey Arthur, throw away your current sword. I know of a sword that, while clearly inferior to your current sword and any of those owned by your knights, has jewels and a long history and is fit for the thespian-king of England!" That's common sense - the best magic items are the most powerful ones. I don't know what kind of game, that implements the concept of power in any realistic sense, would have things any different. Fiction and legend supports the munchkin in this. Every warrior in history and legend was a munchkin - that's why they wear armor - and they'd wear it even if it weren't shining.

And also, with respects to the magic store, you can't expect players to take a +4 cloak with jewels seriously if you're selling +6 cloaks with no names out of the back of a van. Related to the last point, the named items should be among the best of available items. Unrestricted availability of magic items (ie. the magic store) of any power is going to undermine the "specialness" of all magic items. I don't see anywhere in the rules where having a "magic Walmart" is mandated. My advice is to use the DM veto power, IMO it's not hard.

 

[The Shaman]

Once again someone says that don't like three.point.whatever and the usual suspects pop up to say, "Three-eee is a great game - you're just playing it wrong!"

:\

skeptic, I came to the same conclusion after about four years of playing the current iteration of The World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game, though for different reasons. There are a plethora of fantasy roleplaying games out there to choose from, new and old: OD&D, AD&D 1e or 2e, RC D&D, The Fantasy Trip, GURPS, HERO, Sorcerer, Burning Wheel, Conan, Castles and Crusades, Hackmaster, True 20, Black Company, Thieves' World, Blue Rose, and that's just what comes to mind. If the latest version of Dungeons and Dragons isn't your thing, you have plenty of options. You will find many posters on ENWorld knowledgeable about other game systems and happy to share their experiences about these other games.

Three.point.whatever is neither the beginning nor the end of fantasy roleplaying games. Good luck in your quest to find something you enjoy more.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

So, what killed it for me? It turns around the idea of Balance... Of course I want all the classes build with the idea that they should all give the players a way to shine in the party. However what I got is a Balance calculated on the performance in combat of each class in a game where there are 4 encounters / day**.

That doesn't support the kind of campaign* I want to do with the D&D game. Don't think I hate dungeon crawls. I do like them, from times to times, not in every adventure! I also want to run some "mystery solving", some "wilderness trek", some "political diplomacy" or some "overland skirmishes" and I think D&D should support all of them because they are the typical things we imagine adventurers doing.

I'm curious to hear what you'll say about it...

* BTW, I run all my D&D campaigns in FR.
** If you need a proof, add a Psion in a 1 enc. / day campaign.

About ten years ago I realised I didn't like either classes or levels. Artificial constructs (so, for that matter are hit points). So I stopped playing DnD. There are a lot of other games out there and from what I've seen ALL of them are simpler than 3.5

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Once again someone says that don't like three.point.whatever and the usual suspects pop up to say, "Three-eee is a great game - you're just playing it wrong!"

:\

Your argument might have more weight if he hadn't said:

I'm curious to hear what you'll say about it...

Which implies, to me, that he was inviting people to actually weigh in with their opinions, one way or the other. Given that EN World is called "Morrus' D&D/d20 News & Reviews Site," it seems reasonable to assume that people will chime in with why the d20 iteration of D&D is actually pretty good if one drops some of the assumptions made about it. I don't really see a lot of "you're playing it wrong!" style posts here, but a lot of well-reasoned discussion about the underpinnings of the current version of D&D.

By the way, I do, indeed, agree there are all manner of other RPGs out there, one or more of which may well satisfy one's taste better than 3e D&D. Extra points for mentioning HackMaster

 

[David Howery]

isn't the obvious solution to go back to the 2E game? Yeah, it's not supported anymore, but it wouldn't be that hard to convert 3e stuff to 2E.....

 

[gizmo33]

Once again someone says that don't like three.point.whatever and the usual suspects pop up to say, "Three-eee is a great game - you're just playing it wrong!"

So what's the point of this thread? Might as well go to a Vampire website and complain that your truck driver character just isn't as powerful as the vampires. I guess this is just an edition wars thread.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Okay, I'm not entirely sure how ANYONE gets the idea that there are INTENDED to be 4 encounters per day like some kind of clockwork. Though I never USE the DMG rules on encounter frequency (which should be noteworthy to the OP in and of itself) I knew they were there. A quick perusal of all of 2 minutes found three indications of encounter frequency. One reference each for dungeon, wilderness, and city encounters:

Dungeon encounters (p.77) roughly 10% chance per hour (with modifiers: essentially DM discretion).
Wilderness encounters (p.95) 5%-12% chance per hour (depending on locale/population density).
City Encounters (p.101) one encounter per day.

Now you statistics fans would have to tell me how many encounters those percentages work out to per day - but I can with great confidence aver that it does not = 4. As I mentioned I've never used these and there's NOT ONE game-function fracturing reason that I should need to. Even willfully choosing to ignore this pacing the DMG suggests I think 3E still levels up the PC's too quickly because of the number of encounters seen in the typical dungeon/adventure and the standard XP awards for them. But that's actually a side issue.

I assume that you might have taken the notion of "4 encounters/day, every day" from the wording on p.49 under the heading "What's Challenging?" Specifically, it says:
"An encounter with an EL equal to the PC's level is one that should expend about 20% of their resources - hit points, spells, magic, item uses, and so on. This means, on average, that after about four encounters of the party's level the PC's need to rest, heal and regain spells. A fifth encounter would probably wipe them out."
This is not a suggestion that anyone should be running 4 encounters per day. It is a WARNING that running more than 4 (and assuming an average of CR=party level challenge for each) will have undesireable consequences. It sets a LIMIT - not a MINIMUM.

All of this is covered under the general topics of pacing the game, and encounter design. Slowing the pacing of encounters WILL NOT break anything. It only gives you an indication of where your characters resources are likely to be in the course of a given busy day of encounters. As mentioned before this has HIGHLY undesireable implications for long dungeon crawls in 3E. That is if the encounter CR = party level in kicking down the doors of just 4 rooms the party will need to rest and recuperate or risk being wiped out. If a typical dungeon is 30+ occupied rooms that means it could take a WEEK to clear it barring other factors.

I would really like to know where anyone sees the problems and dangers in NOT running 4 encounters per day.

 

[Wombat]

Everyone has to find the kind of game that they want.

I started with )D&D. I dropped out when it became AD&D. I subsequently played RuneQuest, Traveller, GURPS (very, very briefly), FASA Trek, Golden Heroes, TORG, Champions, Paranoia, Ars Magica, and a host of other games. I came back to D&D with the combination of a move to a new town and the arrival of D&D3e -- it was hard to put out the shingle for any of the other games that I really wanted to play and I was willing to try the new edition. Since then I have once again drifted away from D&D. Why? A variety of reasons. Still, it can be a fun game for certain situations (usually one- or two-shots with my group).

The point is that everyone can find a game. Not everyone even have to play the same game the same way. If you and your group are having fun, you are playing right.

 

[marune]

I would really like to know where anyone sees the problems and dangers in NOT running 4 encounters per day.

Because the designers use this number to balance the class abilities and in D&D, it's those same class abilities that give the players options to make their character shine during the adventures.

Written or not in the DMG, the "psion is not broken debate" has showed clearly that the balance factor used by the designer was this average frequency.

I did try another game, it was Burning Wheel, but I know that I like so many things about the D&D genre (non-detrimental magic, D&D dragons, etc.) that I know I'll be tempted to give it again another try.

When I talked about Wal-mart magic items, it was a exemple of a different problem, because there is no assumption about it in the rules, it was created outside, along with the "buildz" idea. (The PHB says that any equipement worth over 3000gp is DM territory IIRC)

 

[marune]

The OP is one of those posts where I suspect that a specific incident is really underlying the issue, and that it has been over-generalized. Is there any point in responding with ideas about how to run a mystery game if this is really about encounters/day?

The introduction of a psion in a party of 13th level was the breaking point, but It's a feeling I got from all my experience under 3.xE.