D&D General Why TSR-era D&D Will Always Be D&D

[Yora]

I find that narrative examples don't really matter that much.
What really impacts how players play a game is what incentives and deterrants the game mechanics for certain kinds of actions that players might want to take. If XP for defeating monsters is the only presented default method by which characters can gain XP, then players will automatically gravitate to seek out fights. Because they understand that they are supposed to. The game is telling them it wants them to.
Make XP for defeating enemies pale compared to the amount that can be gained from collecting treasure, and making combat deadly, and you automatically get a very different engagement with the game. (As long as the players don't decide they want to play it after the game not behaving as they expected it to.)

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe it was because of my age but when I was playing 1E fights weren't something to be avoided, as a kid it was most of the fun of the game. Yes, there was a lot of risk and fatalities were more common than now but if I avoided fights I probably wouldn't have discovered much treasure of had as much fun.

Exactly. High risk should bring high reward, both in terms of fun and treasure.

That's one big change with 5e vs the early editions: while the fun may or may not be at the same level, both the degree of risk and the amount of treasure are way lower.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I find that narrative examples don't really matter that much.
What really impacts how players play a game is what incentives and deterrants the game mechanics for certain kinds of actions that players might want to take. If XP for defeating monsters is the only presented default method by which characters can gain XP, then players will automatically gravitate to seek out fights. Because they understand that they are supposed to. The game is telling them it wants them to.
Make XP for defeating enemies pale compared to the amount that can be gained from collecting treasure, and making combat deadly, and you automatically get a very different engagement with the game. (As long as the players don't decide they want to play it after the game not behaving as they expected it to.)

Except it didn't. I played back in the OD&D days when most experience came from money and minimal from combat, and there was still combat all the time. The incentives were perverse to that, but enough people were playing in partially or totally non-gamist in motivation ways that that just wasn't magneting them towards it (because, in part, if that was what they'd have been doing, they wouldn't have bothered to play at all).

(Mind you, you can argue that a lot of GMs were, effectively, houseruling experience to support what people were actually doing, but it still meant the rules about it in the game weren't actually pushing people notably toward the style of play intended, even if that's what was intended).

 

[Staffan]

So it's no wonder that D&D went from TSR Gold as XP to WOTC monsters as XP to Houserule Encounter as XP.

Gold as XP was, if not completely removed, at least strongly deprecated as early as 2e. It was there as an optional rule, with strong suggestions not to use it because it can lead to Monty Haul tendencies. The one exception was another optional rule about class-based individual XP awards, which gave rogues 2 XP/gp specifically for things stolen. Instead, the suggestion was to use story-based XP.

 

[Lanefan]

Gold as XP was, if not completely removed, at least strongly deprecated as early as 2e. It was there as an optional rule, with strong suggestions not to use it because it can lead to Monty Haul tendencies. The one exception was another optional rule about class-based individual XP awards, which gave rogues 2 XP/gp specifically for things stolen. Instead, the suggestion was to use story-based XP.

Gold as xp wasn't in 2e as written, though it may have been an option. Many tables IME had stopped giving xp for g.p. long before this as a house rule or policy.

The idea of Thieves getting xp for things stolen (1-for-1 xp to g.p. value) long pre-dates 2e - we had it in the mid-80s if not earlier - but I'm not sure where it first appeared.

 

[Orius]

Oh no, gold for XP was definitely in 2e, but it was an option presented to the DM.

There were several ways to give out XP in 2e. The most basic was defeating enemies. Then there was XP for gold. There were individual XP awards, but that kind of shafted priests since one of their main options -- "Spell cast to further ethos" -- was subjective and required a DM judgement call, while everything else was pretty straightforward and objective. Finally, there's story awards. I don't think all the options may have been intended to be used together, and there isn't a lot of great advice for the DM.

 

[Aldarc]

The problem with the conversation about 4e is that people want to point to the economic failure of 4e as proof that 4e was a "bad" game. I'm not saying you're doing this @Mercurius. I don't think you are. But, so many people want to justify their playstyle preferences and justify forcing those preferences on everyone else by claiming that "Well, that was tried in 4e and 4e was rejected, so, we can't do that now." when the economic failure of 4e had virtually nothing to do with the mechanics or the changes 4e made and a lot more to do with timing, outside forces and unreasonable marketing goals.

4E was also pushed out by WotC before it was done playtesting. There were a lot of bugs, errata, and issues with the game when it was released that would take until around PHB3 & MM3 before they got hammered out. It also took awhile for WotC to design good adventures for this new paradigm. Would that have solved every problem that people had with 4e? Most definitely not.

There are definitely innovative aspects about 4e, IMHO, that WotC threw out with the bath water that weren't what really received much ire in the Edition Wars (e.g., Defenses). Defenses, IME, were more intuitive and made play quicker than saving throws: i.e., attacker rolls against the defense. But with the D&D Next playtest, it felt like anything that even so much touched 4e or looked it remotely was abandoned.

I would say that it's a difference of quantity and options, not substance. Things have obviously shifted and evolved, but that wizard is still casting magic missile, the cleric is still healing and the fighter is still swinging a sword. Current edition has more in common with TSR D&D than 4E.

On the other hand 4E did get one thing right, for a brief moment of glory we didn't have gnomes. But then they blew it and brought them back again because they thought it might bring some of the old school players back.

I don't think, from what I recall, having Gnomes in PHB2 was about bringing old school players back. It was from the outset about spreading out player options among PHBs. Gnomes get cited as being absent in PHB1, but they were included in PHB2, which also contained Half-Orcs, Druids, Barbarians, and Bards. But the horrendous 4e marketing that mocked gnomes didn't do the edition any favors, and it gave a horrible impression that they were being purposefully cut.

 

[Oofta]

...
I don't think, from what I recall, having Gnomes in PHB2 was about bringing old school players back. It was from the outset about spreading out player options among PHBs. Gnomes get cited as being absent in PHB1, but they were included in PHB2, which also contained Half-Orcs, Druids, Barbarians, and Bards. But the horrendous 4e marketing that mocked gnomes didn't do the edition any favors, and it gave a horrible impression that they were being purposefully cut.

I was kidding about the gnomes. On the other hand I thought the tiefling and gnome was funny. Oh well, no accounting for taste.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I was kidding about the gnomes. On the other hand I thought the tiefling and gnome was funny. Oh well, no accounting for taste.

i forgot those... that was amazing

 

[payn]

4E was also pushed out by WotC before it was done playtesting. There were a lot of bugs, errata, and issues with the game when it was released that would take until around PHB3 & MM3 before they got hammered out. It also took awhile for WotC to design good adventures for this new paradigm. Would that have solved every problem that people had with 4e? Most definitely not.

There are definitely innovative aspects about 4e, IMHO, that WotC threw out with the bath water that weren't what really received much ire in the Edition Wars (e.g., Defenses). Defenses, IME, were more intuitive and made play quicker than saving throws: i.e., attacker rolls against the defense. But with the D&D Next playtest, it felt like anything that even so much touched 4e or looked it remotely was abandoned.

I didnt care for those things at all. I did really like the idea of healing surges and bloodied, so I do agree some things were good ideas they could have kept around.

I don't think, from what I recall, having Gnomes in PHB2 was about bringing old school players back. It was from the outset about spreading out player options among PHBs. Gnomes get cited as being absent in PHB1, but they were included in PHB2, which also contained Half-Orcs, Druids, Barbarians, and Bards. But the horrendous 4e marketing that mocked gnomes didn't do the edition any favors, and it gave a horrible impression that they were being purposefully cut.

I understand that they wanted to drop some new hotness into 4E with warlords and dragonborn. I was pretty annoyed that my favorite things were not present though in the PHB. I know that if I would just wait for more and more releases Id get what I want and the game would work better. Though, after launch I gave it a go and didnt look back when I found the game wanting. It is very important to get that launch right is the most important lesson of 4E.