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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5984883" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think that's in dispute. But I can run the "liberate the land from the dragon tyrant" scenario in RuneQuest, too. That doesn't necessarily mean that RQ is well-suited to giving me what I'm looking for. In fact, classic RQ has certain features that will make it hard to run a heroic fantasy game (in particular, the grittiness of its combat). For the same sort of reason, Classic Traveller doesn't do Star Wars very well, although you could try it if you wanted to.B/X doesn't suffer from gritty combat too badly (at least once you get to 3rd level). But it has other featurse - the XP system, the exploration mechanics, the time keeping rules, etc - which in my experience are impediments to running the sort of scenario I'm talking about.Nowhere does the text canvass that magic items might be handed out by friendly NPCs. Every bit of text actually pushes the other way: NPC MUs won't share spell books, even if they're ultra-loyal henchmen; items must be earned; think very carefully about placing any treasure, let alone magic treasure, unguarded by any monster or trap; etc.The first express discussion I'm familiar with, in a D&D book, of using friends and mentors rather than enemy or dungeon loot as a source of items, is in the 3E Oriental Adventures book.When I think about the discussion of treasure placement in Moldvay Basic and Gygax's AD&D, there is no canvassing at all that a PC might be gifted a powerful magic item by a mysterious hermit. The entire text is framed around the assumption that magic is a powerful reward, which has to be balanced against the risks of obtaining it. Recovering a lost magic item is one of the sample Moldvay scenarios, from memory - and there is no implication that this will be a social, as opposed to an operational, challenge.The same vibe is present in the unofficial texts from the same period (eg Lewis Pulsipher's stuff in White Dwarf).And if you want to do it as a social challenge, where is the system support? And how much treasure is appropriate? I'm not saying it can't be done - as I said, you can do Star Wars in Traveller if you really want to. But you're pushing against the text and the rules to do so.I don't disagree with that at all!Definitely. And it then also goes to how the gameplay unfolds. In a loot focused game of the AD&D variety, having enough sacks and backpacks is a big part of play. I mean, have a look at the example in Appendix O of the DMG: they find loot, and they have to empty their pockets of rations and fill their sacks and backpacks. And the rules text emphasises this operational issue of how much loot weights, how the PCs are going to carry it out, etc, etc.That stuff adds nothing to a scenario about liberating the lands from the dragon tyrant."Thematic play" in the sense I'm using it isn't that meaningless. Yes, in some sense every text has a theme. But in another familiar sense, Graham Greene's books have thematic content while airport thrillers don't. <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/3/" target="_blank">Here</a> is an expression of the contrast in mechanical terms:Concrete example . . . Simulationism over-riding Narrativism A weapon does precisely the same damage range regardless of the emotional relationship between wielder and target. (True for RuneQuest, not true for Hero Wars) I don't know. Have you had trouble running a "monsters are everywhere" game using 4e? I haven't, but I'm not you. (I use other techniques than wandering monster tables to run my "monsters are everywhere" game.)I have had trouble running epic, thematic games in classic D&D. The rules don't support it. And in fact they actively get in the way.There is a game that tries to keep classic D&D mechanics intact, while using "story" to drive the game. It is called 2nd ed AD&D. I have pretty much the orthodox Forge view of that system: I want the mechanics to serve my goals in play, not push against them.There are two ways of interpreting what you describe here.One is at the RPG scenario level: some PCs are heroes, other mercenaries (Star Wars is a well-known example; the Seven Samurai is another). If I wanted to run that scenario , it strikes me as obvious that Burning Wheel would do a better job, because it would both support the competing PC motivations and bring them into conflict in an interesting and mechanically mediated way. (I'm sure there are other systems, too, that could do as good a job as Burning Wheel.)But if you are talking at the actual table level - some players want to play a heroic game, others want to play an operational mercenary game - then I can already feel the balance of power issues, and I'm not even sitting down to play yet! If I run this group using classic D&D rules and GM them Gygax's way, then the heroic players will, I think, have the game pushing against them at nearly every turn. If, instead, I GM it the 2nd ed way, then I will have to use a lot of GM force to suspend and manipulate the action resolution mechanics (and perhaps other aspects of the mechanis as well). The operational players won't get what they're looking for. The heroic players may or may not, depending how important protagonism is to them. Neither is an experiment I particularly care to carry out in practice!Anyway, when I talk about an epic, thematic game, I'm not talking about PC motivations - one of the more memorable PCs that I GMed was a self-loathing traitor to his city and beliefs, who died (multiple times - it was a gonzo-fantasy game with ressurection available) as a consequence of his drug addiction, and at the hands of the demon's summoned by his evil wizard "friend" and overlord. I'm talking about what I and the players are getting out of the game. I'm talking about rules, not setting. Action resolution rules. Character build rules. Treasure placement rules. Pacing rules (which in classic D&d mostly involves timekeeping). Which is a good chunk of the overall suite of classic D&D rules.Tell me what they were. You mentioned the 4e DarkSun book - ie you're pointing at a book. Tell me what the classic D&D book was that I missed (other than Oriental Adventures, which I've already mentioned).</blockquote>

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