Quote from: CRKrueger;760081and that's how YOU played.

Nah not really but that is definitely how material was generally presented in magazines and so on.
Like I have mentioned a few times we didn't generally accept the "new PCs just happen to turn up" model at all which is why as I have also mentioned previously I spent a couple of sessions playing a sword.

I mean look at the old school tropes round each player having a group of PCs and henchmen and you take the on into the adventure as appropriate how does that relate to the concept of PCs being rare and the vast majority of folks being 0 level?

Quote from: One Horse Town;760097The sacrificial altar has to be propped up by exactly 13 copies of deities & demigods or dread Cthulhu won't answer.

And the last thing you want is a....

Quote from: jibbajibba;760056Nah I played it basically daily through all of high school.

Quote from: CRKrueger;760081and that's how YOU played.

Quote from: jibbajibba;760098Nah not really but that is definitely how material was generally presented in magazines and so on.

So this fictional 1e playstyle you have in your head that you shit out as fact on forums every now and again you never actually played, just assumed got played from your interpretation of the rules.

Cool story bro.

Quote from: Fiasco;760069Nah, JMal was a pompous, small minded little cock who had nothing much of worth to say.

Never met him, but, as I said, I found his blog entertaining. Note that entertaining does not necessarily mean I agreed with everything he said, but if he wasnt a decent writer nobody would have STRONG OPINIONS FROM STRANGERS ON THE INTERNETS! about him years later

Quote from: TristramEvans;760155Never met him, but, as I said, I found his blog entertaining. Note that entertaining does not necessarily mean I agreed with everything he said, but if he wasnt a decent writer nobody would have STRONG OPINIONS FROM STRANGERS ON THE INTERNETS! about him years later

JMal definitely had some interesting articles.  Yeah, excessive navel-gazing, yeah essentially clueless about a lot, pompous ass - as time went on, certainly.  But he got people talking and realizing "Hey, those old games were actually pretty good you know, I'm not the only one who actually liked them."

Quote from: Brad;758887You mean like all the jackass grognards who bitched endlessly about WotC sitting on AD&D for years, then stating loudly they would NOT purchase the reprints out of spite due to some perceived grievance?

I remember those guys.

Well yes.

WOTC have been complete cocks, no question, but they did give us the OGL and thus safeguard D&D for all time. I can forgive even 4E for that.

Besides, they are a corporation, why hold them to higher standards than any other consumer product producer. When you buy a car do you not buy a Ford because they made a shit model back in 2008?

Quote from: TristramEvans;760155Never met him, but, as I said, I found his blog entertaining. Note that entertaining does not necessarily mean I agreed with everything he said, but if he wasnt a decent writer nobody would have STRONG OPINIONS FROM STRANGERS ON THE INTERNETS! about him years later

I think you'll find that Dmimmermount is what pissed off most people. He fucked up and then crawled off to G+ without ever admitting fault or apologizing to the poor stooges he defrauded.

Quote from: CRKrueger;759946The one with Melnibone and Cthulhu?  I have like 4 of 'em, didn't know they were that rare.

I'm not sure. All I know is that the for-sale copy was $70.

I'm not buying it as I still need to find a job that pays more than $8.50 US an hour.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;759792Spells like create food and water: huh, so why does farming exist, again?

Q1: How many people can actually cast that spell in the game world?
Q2: How many of those people are willing to spend their days casting that spell over and over again to feed everyone else?

If the answer to Q1 is "plenty" and Q2 is "enough", then yeah, you have a gameworld without farming. But I would argue that it is a world where spellcasting powers are substantially more common than the rules assume. Remember that the composition of a PC party implies nothing about the distribution of spellcasters in the population as a whole.

Quote from: Warthur;760258Q1: How many people can actually cast that spell in the game world?
Q2: How many of those people are willing to spend their days casting that spell over and over again to feed everyone else?

Q3: How many gods will tolerate their divine power being put to such mundane, and perhaps revolutionary uses?

Gods typically don't like revolution. They don't like being used to achieve the ends of men, rather than their own ends. Remember how the gods punished Prometheus? A lot players seem to forget that every spell a cleric casts is at the sufferance of a deity, and should be cast towards the desired goals of that deity.

Quote from: Warthur;760258Q1: How many people can actually cast that spell in the game world?
Q2: How many of those people are willing to spend their days casting that spell over and over again to feed everyone else?

If the answer to Q1 is "plenty" and Q2 is "enough", then yeah, you have a gameworld without farming. But I would argue that it is a world where spellcasting powers are substantially more common than the rules assume. Remember that the composition of a PC party implies nothing about the distribution of spellcasters in the population as a whole.

Quote from: Haffrung;760259Q3: How many gods will tolerate their divine power being put to such mundane, and perhaps revolutionary uses?

Gods typically don't like revolution. They don't like being used to achieve the ends of men, rather than their own ends. Remember how the gods punished Prometheus? A lot players seem to forget that every spell a cleric casts is at the sufferance of a deity, and should be cast towards the desired goals of that deity.

There you both go again, bringing up things outside of literal RAW that impact actual game play.  When will you both learn that the only thing that matters when making generalizations about game play are white room scenarios?

Quote from: Jame Rowe;759937How does feeling that WOTC screwed 4E over, as a product, fall under this?

Why would that affect your feelings about 5E one way or another? If 5E, when it comes out, turns out to be a game that you think is well-designed and which you'd enjoy playing, would you really spurn it because of sadfeels about Wizards' treatment of 4E?

Quote from: Haffrung;760259Q3: How many gods will tolerate their divine power being put to such mundane, and perhaps revolutionary uses?

Well, to be fair in some settings clerics will be getting their spells from abstract concepts or through the sheer power of belief. ("Lothar, don't you get it? You didn't need the magic feather - the Cure Light Wounds was inside you all along!") But yeah, in a setting where the gods are actual people who have opinions on stuff they're going to be like "excuse me, I didn't realise I was the God of Welfare over here."

Quote from: Haffrung;760259Q3: How many gods will tolerate their divine power being put to such mundane, and perhaps revolutionary uses?

Gods typically don't like revolution. They don't like being used to achieve the ends of men, rather than their own ends. Remember how the gods punished Prometheus? A lot players seem to forget that every spell a cleric casts is at the sufferance of a deity, and should be cast towards the desired goals of that deity.

The Neutral Good god of feeding all the poor folks?
We don't know that all gods are megalomatic arseholes who would torture an immortal for eternity for giving man the ability to make a decent hot dinner or would commit mass genocide by drowning of all the people on earth because they failed to worship him with the correct degree of reverence.

From a wizard perspective since we have established that the entry requirements are minimal and since under D&D 1e rules every large settlement has a wizard that is willing to train lower level wizards in return for gold in line with 1e training and leveling rules we can assume that said wizard who is willing to train for money -
a) is willing to train wizards
b) is interested in money

Thus would said wizard possibly train a number of acolytes in magic basics and then teach them a utilitarian 1st level wizard spell like light, mending, unseen servant or enlarge/reduce and have them mass producing a load of shit in return for room and board. These could be orphans of reasonable intelligence that make the % roll to know a spell. They are not the "rare" folks that want to be adventurers but plenty of smart kids work in sweat shops rather than live on the street.

Doesn't that all seem remarkable viable in a setting with minimal to zero entry level requirements for wizardry.