Why I don't play D&D anymore

[Wes350]

Well, even in a game like Dunjon or Runequest characters have to rest once in a while and recuperate after they've been attacked by the Evil Minions of Nastiness. So why not provide a guideline for the adventure designer that tells him how far apart to space the lulls in the action? It's not a D&D thing. It's a "oh my god I can't take another step, but now we have to climb Mt. Doom?" thing. Even if the intention is to push the characters to their limits, you still have to have a decent idea where those limits are going to be. Playtest data, translated into a CR/EL guideline, provides you with the means to make an educated guess.

I can understand your point of view as a 3.5 player. But in those other systems you listed like Runequest the whole EL is just not needed. the types of things you talked about are just obvious during play.




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[Rystil Arden]

Bah! This is what makes for interesting roleplaying. Would you get on the fighter-player's case if he fought for a few rounds with his axe and only switched when your PC (your PC, not you the player) pointed out his bullheadedness?

Or in the case of the pyromancer: still casting fire spells at the red dragon until he realizes they aren't doing anything because, even though the player knows better, the character doesn't?

This is the same reason I can't get into MMORPGs: the cost/benefit, optimization mentality.

Indiana Jones still carries his whip, even though his revolver does more damage.

Unless you are playing a character with 4 or lower in some mental ability score or is perhaps Chaotic Neutral/Evil and quite insane, I would say that the problem isn't with optimising. It's bad roleplaying.

To eschew a known effective weapon or spell and use ones that continually do nothing to the enemy, even to the death of the entire party unless someone argues with you over it would require a WoT-Aiel-style cultural taboo to never use swords ever ever no matter what, not just 'I like axes'.

Now, if your character had an Aiel-style taboo to never use swords, no one in my game, myself included, would get on your case to use the shortsword. If not, this is an unreasonable way to play a human being (barring insanity or microscopic mental scores, though even animals are smarter than that, actually).



As to Indiana Jones, gizmo good points aside, note that I didn't say to throw away the axe or even not to use the axe generally. I said to use the axe and carry the shortsword as backup for opponents with DR.

 

[IcyCool]

I would like to point out that I don't think D&D is broken in some way, or that I hate D&D. I think that it isn't the one true system (there isn't one of those), and that it doesn't do some things all that well. You can work around problems with a little effort though.

I do agree with the OP that running a game where you don't follow the 4+ encounters a day model does make things difficult. In situations like that, the DM needs to take steps to rebalance things.

One or two encounters a day, consistently, in a D&D game throws things in favor of spellcasters and psionics. Doing this is not badwrongfun, but the DM does need to take steps to fix any issues that crop up. Sometimes, a DM may find that this just isn't worth the effort. That's their decision to make.

There have been several good suggestions in this thread about how to work around this issue. Hopefully, you can find something useful, skeptic. And if not, maybe you'll find a game system that you will enjoy for a while.

 

[Kalshane]

I don't like psionics and don't use them in my games. I feel they're more much better for sci-fi than for fantasy. So I have nothing to weigh in on in regards to the power of psions.

For games I have run and games I have played in, we've never worried about a 4 encounter rule or ever assumed there would be a certain number of encounters per day. Sometimes it takes several sessions to get through a day, and sometimes weeks pass in the course of a session. There's never an instance, barring obvious "boss fights" where the players feel comfortable letting loose with everything they have.

None of the games I've played in or run have had magical "Wal-Marts". There are occaisional oppurtunities to commission the creation of magical items or you can tell the DM "Hey, my character is on the lookout for someone X item while we're in town" but that's about it. Even my one game world where I had an "Adventurer's Guild" the players had to pay regular dues to be make use of the facility and outside of healing potions (a guaranteed seller and fairly easy to make) they regularly only had a handful of magic items on hand for sale, and rarely were they exactly what the players were looking for."

In addition to combat XP, I regularly make use of ad hoc awards for completing storylines and for good RPing, though in recent years I've taken to giving those awards in the form of "Fate Points" which the characters can spend on re-rolls and the like or convert straight into XP if they wish.

While we try to make characters mechanically sound, we start with a concept and then build around it, rather than going for the megakillemall character. The only time someone will comment on another players character build is if the player is complaining about their character's effectiveness, at which point more mechanically experienced players will point out how they can rectify the problem. If someone is playing a sub-optimal character and enjoying it, what does it matter. The point is to have fun. The only character I've seen ever really questioned in recent memory was a gnome rogue/illusionist in an undead-heavy campaign and even then it was an "Are you sure? You're might have a tough time." thing rather than an "Oh my God, your worthless character is going to get us all killed!" thing.

I think, ultimately, it depends on the players and the DM, what they want out of the game, and what assumptions they have or don't have. For my group, we only make assumptions based on the stated rules and house rules for character generation and combat, and after that it's all up to the game world and the DM's judgement.

 

[DonTadow]

I started with D&D under 2E (+- '93) and I was and I'm still most of the time the DM of my different groups. I switched to 3E and 3.5E as soon as they were released.

At first, I really loved these new editions; I was even aggressive against those "old skool" gamers who didn't want to hear about an elven wizard/paladin.

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.

There are dozens of supplements that can solve your problem. You might not like 3.5 but you should love the OGL. If you want to balance out characters with more diverse non combat stuff, try using books likes dieties and demigogues. The enworld stuff is packed with classes, feats and skills that you can integrate or build your world out of that will allow you to do the kind of campaign you want.

 

[Klaus]

I would like to point out that I don't think D&D is broken in some way, or that I hate D&D. I think that it isn't the one true system (there isn't one of those), and that it doesn't do some things all that well. You can work around problems with a little effort though.

I do agree with the OP that running a game where you don't follow the 4+ encounters a day model does make things difficult. In situations like that, the DM needs to take steps to rebalance things.

One or two encounters a day, consistently, in a D&D game throws things in favor of spellcasters and psionics. Doing this is not badwrongfun, but the DM does need to take steps to fix any issues that crop up. Sometimes, a DM may find that this just isn't worth the effort. That's their decision to make.

There have been several good suggestions in this thread about how to work around this issue. Hopefully, you can find something useful, skeptic. And if not, maybe you'll find a game system that you will enjoy for a while.

Several adventures have pointed out that if a planned encounter is the only one the PCs will face in a day, it's ok (probably desireable) to make it a higher-CR. By the same token, if you're planning on chipping away at the PCs' resources, several lower-CR encounters are better.

Really, the 4/day guideline is just a way of measuring where a given creature stands when compared to the PCs' capabilities.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Skeptic,

If you ever meet anyone who has folded, spindled, and mutilated the basic structure of the game more than I have, please have him contact me! I am not at all afraid to change classes, races, feats, the spellcasting system, alignment rules, etc. to make the game work the way I want it to work. I highly recommend the same to you.

When I was running 3.0 nearly straight (I gave out 1/2 XP and rolled init each round as house rules), I certainly didn't worry about having 4 encounters per day. Sometimes days would go by where there were only 1-2 encounters; sometimes the PCs might have 10. I, for one, think that 4 encounters per day is too few for some environs, so I took it upon myself to refit the game to make the PCs able to last for more encounters. I also thought the PCs were far too equipment-dependent in this edition, so I refit the game to make the PCs able to defend themselves better without armour, and to allow them to try to push through for more damage (this weapon skill system is posted somewhere on EN World, and you might find it useful).

The point is, you can alter this game to your heart's content. And, when you do, you might find that you have to adapt 3.X adventures.....but also that the adventures of earlier editions suddenly become easier to adapt as well.

Good luck with it!

RC

 

[Destil]

*sigh* 4 encounters per day means one thing:
The EL ratings are based on the assumption that a party of 4 at level X with items totaling a GP value approprate to level X can fight 4 EL X encounters before spending all of their 'resoucres' (spells, hit points etc.) A 5th encounter would most likely be a TPK as they should be nearly out of usefull spells, low on HP et cetera.

And let's be fair, it's the 4 iconics. Tordek Dwarf Fighter, Mialee Elf Wizard, Lydia Halfling Thief and Josan Human cleric. All with statring stats of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 at 1st level (before racial adjustments).

(Note: I've never heard anyone explain how resources like wands and potions that are not restricted to daily use come into play in this mesurement. If anyone has I'd love to hear!)

That's it.

Really, that's it. It's advice for the DM to what CR and EL mean reletive to your party's level.

It's a tiny obscure part of the system designed to help explain a single line in most monster entrys that trys (and sometimes fails, but at least it trys) to sum up something as abstract as monster power.

It's a little bit of friendly advice to the DM as far as what to expect when you put 2 orcs against your bran new shiny 4 member 1st person party (that after the 4th pair of orcs they'll most likely need to rest, though axe crits are nasty at 1st level...)

Why this gets drug out and beaten as meaning the system was designed for "4 encounters per day" I have no idea. Likewise why it gets drug out and beaten as far as the game requiring 4 PC. Or requiring a cleric, rogue, wizard and fighter.

The fact is they had to make some assumptions when they designed the system. And because they explained what thoes assumptions were, you have some idea what changes between your group and their test group mean. There was no way to build the EL / CR system without a baseline for player power.

Now why there aren't half a dozen books on what sort of changes happen when you vary party size / wealth / magic / class compisition to this baseline I don't have a clue. They would be so much more usefull than semi-generic book with some sort of theme but at least 10 prestige classes / spells / magic items / feats for a DM. I guess what accounts math just isn't an easy pitch when you want someone to publish a book... (and the lack of player apeal hurts too, I'm sure).

Stating that the rules don't work for you because you don't have 4 players; your players don't play cleric, rogue, fighter, wizard or you don't run dungeon crawls with 4 fights a day is like saying that the metric system dosn't work for you because it's based on the idea that a cubic centimeter of water weighs 1 gram and you're mesuring lead, not water.

(yes that's a dated example because centimeters are now defined in terms of the speed of light and grams are a defined quantity. I'm just gonna run with it anyway...)

Note: Henry's right on. Player (and DM) assumption is where this causes problems. It's not really the system...

 

[Wes350]

Skeptic,

I am not at all afraid to change classes, races, feats, the spellcasting system, alignment rules, etc. to make the game work the way I want it to work. I highly recommend the same to you.

The real question is at what point are you really just better off finding a different system that is closer to what you want in the first place, rather than spending a lot of effort re-inventing the wheel.

And I agree that for skeptic it seems to be his player (and DM) assumptions that are causing the problems not the core 3.5 system. Which is why I reccomend trying different systems that might better suit your style of play and assumptions from the get go.




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[Lonely Tylenol]

I can understand your point of view as a 3.5 player. But in those other systems you listed like Runequest the whole EL is just not needed. the types of things you talked about are just obvious during play.

EL isn't needed for D&D either. It's a guideline to streamline adventure design. It's not a hard and fast rule. It's just a tool. When I run Paranoia I don't need to worry about these things because I expect people to just die. When I run GURPS Fantasy, for example, I do. I don't want to overwhelm the PCs, only to challenge them. In GURPS Fantasy there's no tool to tell me how much to throw at a group of PCs of a certain power level, so I have to rely on my experience. If I were new at it, that might be tricky. In D&D there's a tool, and it's helpful, and I ignore it about half the time because I know how many goblins will be hard to beat but not devastating for a 3rd level party.

I really think people take this whole issue way too seriously. D&D is a game that focuses on tactical combat. That's certainly true. However, it's a focus. It's not the totality of the game. And there's no scene that can't be played with D&D characters. Just read Tales of Wyre for proof of that.