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General Tabletop Discussion
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With the Holy Trinity out, let's take stock of 5E
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6464585" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I don't think that [MENTION=22260]TerraDave[/MENTION] is counting the 1980s as "early D&D". I think the original campaigns are being referred to.</p><p></p><p>But in fact there was plenty of improvisation in 1980s D&D too. Moldvay, in his Basic rulebook, even gave advice on how to handle it. (So does Gygax, less prominently, in his DMG discussion of optional secondary skills: he suggests that the GM should consider one of the skills in which s/he has some degree of proficiency, work out what that lets him/her accomplish in that particular field of endeavour, and then extrapolate to the various other fields of activity that the secondary skill table encompasses.)</p><p></p><p>Upthread you compared D&D to computer games, but the permissible moves in D&D are not bound in the same way they are as for a computer game (especially computer games 25 or 30 years ago). The same is true when D&D is compared to Mastermind and Chess, other games that you have mentioned.</p><p></p><p>For instance, what are the rules to determine if a character can use an iron spike and a mallet to break a portcullis mechanism, thereby rapidly dropping the bars so as to hold off some approaching orcish soldiers? That is a permissible move that a player might declare, but the AD&D and B/X games provide no rules for adjudicating it. The closest we get is the STR chart for opening doors and (in AD&D) bending bars/lifting gates.</p><p></p><p>I am guessing (but am happy to be corrected) that this might be one example of the sort of improvisation that TerraDave had in mind.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6464585, member: 42582"] I don't think that [MENTION=22260]TerraDave[/MENTION] is counting the 1980s as "early D&D". I think the original campaigns are being referred to. But in fact there was plenty of improvisation in 1980s D&D too. Moldvay, in his Basic rulebook, even gave advice on how to handle it. (So does Gygax, less prominently, in his DMG discussion of optional secondary skills: he suggests that the GM should consider one of the skills in which s/he has some degree of proficiency, work out what that lets him/her accomplish in that particular field of endeavour, and then extrapolate to the various other fields of activity that the secondary skill table encompasses.) Upthread you compared D&D to computer games, but the permissible moves in D&D are not bound in the same way they are as for a computer game (especially computer games 25 or 30 years ago). The same is true when D&D is compared to Mastermind and Chess, other games that you have mentioned. For instance, what are the rules to determine if a character can use an iron spike and a mallet to break a portcullis mechanism, thereby rapidly dropping the bars so as to hold off some approaching orcish soldiers? That is a permissible move that a player might declare, but the AD&D and B/X games provide no rules for adjudicating it. The closest we get is the STR chart for opening doors and (in AD&D) bending bars/lifting gates. I am guessing (but am happy to be corrected) that this might be one example of the sort of improvisation that TerraDave had in mind. [/QUOTE]
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With the Holy Trinity out, let's take stock of 5E
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