Quote from: The Shaman;373400Yeah, the "bag of rats" one.

Anytime I ran AD&D, I usually included a fair number of encounters with 0-level humans and <1HD humanoids 'cause it was just so much fun watching the players' eyes light up as their higher-level characters prepared to tee off . . .  :cool:

I have an awesome story like this. Back at the beginning of the 90s, I was involved in the gaming association of a high school I actually wasn't going to (I was going to Catholic school, while the association was in the city's public school. Anyway). We got involved with the bureau of the Mayor to make demonstrations of what RPGs were, along with other associations demonstrating their own activities, artists showcasing their stuff, and so on, so forth, through the city's streets in Summer. Really cool stuff.

So here we are, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, under the shadow of the Park's Music Gazebo, playing demos for people walking by, with a bunch of others explaining what was going on to those who'd stop and ask questions, you know. I had the good taste to bring First Ed at the exposition. We ran a game (and used unpainted lead miniatures in a very loose, order-of-march kind of way, btw), and at one point, the PCs came about a whole tribe of dozens upon dozens of kobolds worshipping an obelisk. One of the PCs, the fighter of the group, decided to jump in the melee with a Scythe he'd carried all the way to the dungeon, precisely for this type of purpose. Now imagine: here I am, DM, describing to the player his character killing kobolds by the handful, as he makes his way through their ranks, heads and limbs flying all around, bumping with flat, hollow "splotchhh" against the walls of the cavern, blood spraying left and right as he went back and forth with the scythe, all the while with average non-gamers walking by, listening in...

LOL Great advertisement for role playing games. BADD would have had a field day!

Quote from: Benoist;373391It may be loved too when it is fast, furious, and taking place in your mind's eye rather than a game board with miniatures on a table.

What said encounter, save for, basically, the phrase, "I attack!," makes it a combat? What part of that encounter is the beloved element or elements?

Seanchai

Quote from: 1989;373408That's exactly what WotC did -- took what Gygax made for people who are not miniatures battle game enthusiasts and made it into a miniatures battle game.

Bunch of morons.

4e. What a joke.

Are you saying the minimum length of combat, or even the typical length of combat, in 4E is "several hours"?

1989's understanding of 4e. What a joke.

Quote from: Seanchai;373423What said encounter, save for, basically, the phrase, "I attack!," makes it a combat?

Ignoring for the moment that this is not the only way to do fast, abstract combat, saying "I attack" and making a to hit roll is as much combat as saying "I try to intimidate them" and making a skill roll is intimidation.  Early (TSR) versions of D&D made combat a roll and required more player skill for other activities. Later (WOTC) versions of D&D made combat a player-skill-based minis battle game while turning most other activities into a die roll. Some people prefer one over the other. As is probably obvious, I prefer the original.

Quote from: Fifth Element;373424Are you saying the minimum length of combat, or even the typical length of combat, in 4E is "several hours"?

1989's understanding of 4e. What a joke.

I'm not. The type of tactical game Gygax was referring to in the article was more detailed than either 3.x or 4e is. However, combats in both 3.x and 4e -- playing anything close to RAW -- are much, much longer than I find enjoyable.

They are also far more tactical than I'm interested in. You know all the people who don't like having to come up with what their character does to try to intimidate or persuade an NPC, they just want to make the roll as they character is the one with the skill not them?  Well, I'm like that about combat. My character is the fighter, I'm not. I want to just say something like "My character will try to move around to the flank and attack when they are least expecting it." I have no interest in figuring out the exact path the character needs to take  or the exact timing when he moves into this or that square for best effect. If I want to play a minis combat game, I'll play one. I don't want one in the middle of my RPG. To each their own.

QuoteBraggadacio aside, the "one hit per level" rule (I always called it the Giant Class rule..) is totally the minion rule of AD&D- a single hit dice could easily be (and often was) 1 or 2 or 3 hit points. The real question was "how many of these monsters can you even reach.." It certainly wasn't uncommon for a mid level fighter to slay 4 or 5 or 6 goblins or ruffians or whatever.. in a round. And a higher level fighter? Might kill 8. or 12.

I do think this is the origin of 3e feats like cleave, by the way.

Yup, seems likely.
Its very interesting to see the 'evolution' of mechanics through the editions. (I'm using 'evolution' almost in the biological sense here - i.e. I'm not necessarily suggesting improvement). Watch as rangers who couldn't TWF in heavy armour because they couldn't use their thief skills in heavy armour either, get it coded in as a separate restriction! Watch as fighter/ranger Crossbow Specialization becomes Point Blank Shot then gets hijacked by Warlocks as Prime Shot! Watch as the Lawful Evil alignment language becomes Infernal, and so on.

Quote from: Fifth Element;373424Are you saying the minimum length of combat, or even the typical length of combat, in 4E is "several hours"?

Dumbass.

Quote from: Seanchai;373423What said encounter, save for, basically, the phrase, "I attack!," makes it a combat? What part of that encounter is the beloved element or elements?

Seanchai

Excluded middle.

There is, you know... a world of options between full-on tactical combat with a grid and miniatures, and just "I attack!".
WORLDS of options, actually. Have you never ever played verbal combats using more than "I attack!"?
Think before you post, for God's sakes. :rolleyes:

Benoist, just for your information on why people like me are so mad at this site:
We had a full thread discussing the range of possible complexity-reduction that exists. Including treatises on the dimesnionality and degrees of freedom, maps vs, sketches vs behind the screen sketches etc pp ad nauseam. The madness part: Seanchai was there at the time. It´s discursive nihilism. Don´t bother with him, he´ll forget he ever met you in two days flat.

Time is what makes us human. Forgetfulness on such a scale is a crime against civilization itself. Also do note that Eliot & others already repeated/alluded to what they said back then, to no avail.

Quote from: RandallS;373426Ignoring for the moment that this is not the only way to do fast, abstract combat, saying "I attack" and making a to hit roll is as much combat as saying "I try to intimidate them" and making a skill roll is intimidation.

Exactly my point. If that's what fast, abstracted combat is, can you really love it? Saying you love fast, abstracted combat seems to be basically saying you love rolling dice.

Quote from: RandallS;373426Early (TSR) versions of D&D made combat a roll and required more player skill for other activities.

Such as?

Quote from: RandallS;373426Later (WOTC) versions of D&D made combat a player-skill-based minis battle game while turning most other activities into a die roll.

What did WotC turn into a die roll that wasn't already a die roll in a TSR version?

Seanchai

Quote from: Benoist;373438There is, you know... a world of options between full-on tactical combat with a grid and miniatures, and just "I attack!".

Give us some examples of what you mean. I'm guessing you mean one of two things (or both): roleplaying and some tactical/strategic elements, but not as many as are present in 4e.

The first is...interesting. Some roleplaying and then dice rolls seems to me to be very much like the bit of roleplaying and dice rolls used when trying to convince the Troll King to let his captives go.

Adding in tactical and strategic elements seems to do away with the idea of fast and abstract.

So I'm curious about what middle is being excluded from "fast, abstract combat."

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;373497Adding in tactical and strategic elements seems to do away with the idea of fast and abstract.

This presumes those elements weren't present previously, which simply isn't true.  Ex falso quodlibet.

Quote from: Seanchai;373496Exactly my point. If that's what fast, abstracted combat is, can you really love it? Saying you love fast, abstracted combat seems to be basically saying you love rolling dice.

You, too, need to read Feng Shui again. Everyone needs to.

Quote from: Thanlis;373503You, too, need to read Feng Shui again. Everyone needs to.

I've played two editions of the game. How does it change TSR's D&D games?

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;373496Exactly my point. If that's what fast, abstracted combat is, can you really love it? Saying you love fast, abstracted combat seems to be basically saying you love rolling dice.

For combat, that's about all I want. I don't want a tactical mini-game to play out. I want combat to be very fast to play and very loose. Tactics are telling the GM what you do and getting a GM-determined bonus or special effect for it.  I have no more interest in becoming an expert on the details of combat to play a character than most people playing an astrophysicist character in a game have in learning the details of astrophysics.

I realize this may seem alien to people who find combat the most exciting and interesting part of an RPG, but I find being expected to master a tactical subgame puts me off playing as much as being expected to master astrophysics to plot a jump in Traveller would.  I have even less interest in learning the "tactics" of manipulating the combat mini-game's tactical rules for a game-rule-based advantage. I find all this boring as hell. "Joe the fighter takes his two-handed sword and tries to block the the orcs from advancing down the corridor" is tactical enough to me. I have zero interest in learning how to actually do that with the tactical battle rules of games like 3.x and 4e.

QuoteWhat did WotC turn into a die roll that wasn't already a die roll in a TSR version?

All the skills, for the most part. With the exception of a couple of character classes, there weren't any skills (nor lists of modifiers for them) in early versions of D&D. You did not roll to intimidate, you described what you were doing and the GM decided what happened and if the GM though a die roll was needed, he told you want to roll.  No generic "I try to intimidate" and roll the dice against a skill to see if you did it or not.