Quote from: Kyle Aaron;916543I have the solution to the OP's problem.

Fair enough, JimBob. But as I said, I was surprised but not dismayed. It is not actually a problem, I just roll with it. Centipedes are still super deadly, as are most traps already in the modules...
..it is a good book series, that is true.

Quote from: Omega;916538Um... you know nothing of game design and playtesting then.

Bullshit. By which I mean, not only is your statement here false. It's not even plausible. Being a GM for any appreciable amount of time requires a bit of a hand at design. So if this is going to be your basis for disagreement, I can save us both a lot of times. You're wrong. Go find something else.

QuoteMany are the games that started out as very planned.

We're not talking about "many" games. We're talking about one game in particular. Note (by which I mean read the fucking quote you're responding to before you write your reply) I said that playtesting does not exclude the possibility that there was also careful planning. But extensive playtesting does nothing to suggest there was careful planning. In fact, if anything, the more extensive the playtesting, the more the game will tend to be informed by playtesting rather than planning. So in that sense, it's the opposite. Not saying the two are mutual exclusive. Just that what's quoted fails miserably as any evidence to the thesis that people claim D&D was carefully planned, and in fact carries a soft (tendency, not conclusive) implication to the contrary.

The whole "thesis" is actually stupid on its face (by which I mean meaningless). There are a lot of people in the world. I don't doubt that if you look hard enough you can find someone somewhere who actually did say just about anything, including insisting OD&D was carefully planned out. That you can find such a person is meaningless. So when someone points to a quote that doesn't say that at all in in fact softly implies the exact opposite is a pretty strong indicator that the thesis is dead from the neck up.

Quote from: estar;916233What I do remember are plenty of posts of people who like OD&D, warts and all, and say that it is a playable game, myself among them. I also remember a lot of testy reaction when people basically said the equivalent of "Why you are playing such a badly written, broken RPG?"

For the record, my position is very much that not being 'carefully planned' or 'thoughtfully balanced' is part of what makes old-school D&D awesome.

Back on topic.

Was just re-reading the optional Vitality rule from the UA articles and that has some potential for adding in the sort of wearing down some want. Vitality being tied to a characters CON score and every 10 damage you take from an attack reduces the vitality by one. Which reduces your max HP. Crits cause a double reduction. Vitality recovers 1 point per long rest + CON mod.

Quote from: RPGPundit;917206For the record, my position is very much that not being 'carefully planned' or 'thoughtfully balanced' is part of what makes old-school D&D awesome.

I partially agree, however there was a plan. The plan was to play things, to see how it worked, change was doesn't and keep what does. Rinse and repeat. Over and over again with multiple groups of people. At some point Gygax felt he had enough and worked with Dave Arneson to produce the final version of what was published.

And then went back to continue his campaigns and evolving the rules.

In one sense you are right but not informative. Did Gygax and Arneson make up shit one day and spent a few weeks polishing? Did they come up with the whole thing in rough form, did some playtesting and then publish it? As it turns out it was a dynamic evolution from a small set of rules (I think 10 to 14 pages).

And for everybody reading this, one thing you have to remember about Arneson's Blackmoor and Gygax's Greyhawk is that they a lot of more players playing the campaign at the same time. Not always the same sessions. I believe Greyhawk had 20 people at one time crowded in Gygax's basement. From the stories and antedotes that didn't happen often but the total roster of the campaign was huge compared to how people run campaign today. Then there was the fact that games were run four or five nights a week.

The implication this that Gygax's Greyhawk and Arneson's Blackmoor were able to get a lot of feedback quickly from dozens of people.

Quote from: estar;917910I partially agree, however there was a plan. The plan was to play things, to see how it worked, change was doesn't and keep what does. Rinse and repeat. Over and over again with multiple groups of people. At some point Gygax felt he had enough and worked with Dave Arneson to produce the final version of what was published.

And then went back to continue his campaigns and evolving the rules.

In one sense you are right but not informative. Did Gygax and Arneson make up shit one day and spent a few weeks polishing? Did they come up with the whole thing in rough form, did some playtesting and then publish it? As it turns out it was a dynamic evolution from a small set of rules (I think 10 to 14 pages).

And for everybody reading this, one thing you have to remember about Arneson's Blackmoor and Gygax's Greyhawk is that they a lot of more players playing the campaign at the same time. Not always the same sessions. I believe Greyhawk had 20 people at one time crowded in Gygax's basement. From the stories and antedotes that didn't happen often but the total roster of the campaign was huge compared to how people run campaign today. Then there was the fact that games were run four or five nights a week.

The implication this that Gygax's Greyhawk and Arneson's Blackmoor were able to get a lot of feedback quickly from dozens of people.

Yah that defiantly had a big impact on the way the rules developed.

By today's standards, though, that would not fit the typical process for either 'careful planning' or (definitely not) 'thoughtful balance'.

Quote from: Settembrini;911701Hi there!

I am DMing a bit of 1e again (Vs Cult of Reptile God atm), and I found that low level lethality is so far comparable (just a bit higher) to 3e! Why? Because of the very same minus-10-HP-till-proper-death rule.

Unless a total party kill comes about, the survivors drag the uncunscious away and restore them. Which I have no problem with, but Basic D&D has more insta-death when we played KotB and the likes.

So, instead of the wanton slaughter of RC/BECMI (or OD&D) low levels, so far low level AD&D is much more forgiving (except with poison etc., that's still scary as shit).

I am a bit suprised as I had expected more random death and prepared the players to not get too attached to any character.

I like it both ways but find it interesting that AD&D 1e is not as grindy for us as it sounds in many AARs online:
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?26290-The-Temple-of-Elemental-Evil-ate-my-Game-Group&highlight=temple+elemental+evil

Opinions?

Players almost always play to keep their characters. The good ones are successful at it almost regardless of the system, my experience confirms:).
So, I'd like to suggest that maybe it's not the change from OD&D to 1e that's the reason behind the lower bodycount, but that the players now have more experience;).

Quote from: RPGPundit;924545By today's standards, though, that would not fit the typical process for either 'careful planning' or (definitely not) 'thoughtful balance'.

Not it wouldn't considered as careful planning.  I do consider that the cycle of try it in actual play, reflection, and add/modify rules accordingly, repeat is a superior method of developing RPGs than top down design followed by limited playtesting.


The modern example of this is the DCC RPG. Goodman Games spent a year and dozens of games across the United States along with at least two dozen referee playtesting this, including me.

The downside is that it is time and labor intensive. And that you need the inclination, experience, and skill to self-evaluate how things are going. If you don't have that much time, labor or not good at self-evaluation then the process isn't going to work.

Note this is similar to the philosophy behind the idea of release early, release often for software development.

Quote from: estar;924573Not it wouldn't considered as careful planning.  I do consider that the cycle of try it in actual play, reflection, and add/modify rules accordingly, repeat is a superior method of developing RPGs than top down design followed by limited playtesting.


The modern example of this is the DCC RPG. Goodman Games spent a year and dozens of games across the United States along with at least two dozen referee playtesting this, including me.

The downside is that it is time and labor intensive. And that you need the inclination, experience, and skill to self-evaluate how things are going. If you don't have that much time, labor or not good at self-evaluation then the process isn't going to work.

Note this is similar to the philosophy behind the idea of release early, release often for software development.

Sure, I think a bit of both can be useful. Like I said, on the whole some kind of careful crafting isn't always going to make the best game.  Look at a lot of the world's most popular board games: they often are, from a perspective of the people who make modern geek-games, terrible design. But they work for other reasons.

Of course, D&D itself was called "incoherent" by the Forge crowd, and yet they never managed to produce anything nearly as successful as D&D, and the edition most influenced by their dominant GNS theory, 4e, was the least successful edition ever.

Quote from: RPGPundit;925271Sure, I think a bit of both can be useful. Like I said, on the whole some kind of careful crafting isn't always going to make the best game.  Look at a lot of the world's most popular board games: they often are, from a perspective of the people who make modern geek-games, terrible design. But they work for other reasons.

Sure, it helps to have a good foundation from which to start the process with.  

Quote from: RPGPundit;925271Of course, D&D itself was called "incoherent" by the Forge crowd, and yet they never managed to produce anything nearly as successful as D&D, and the edition most influenced by their dominant GNS theory, 4e, was the least successful edition ever.

Agreed. One point you should hammer on is that as a general rule they appear to be are more rules obsessed than the traditional tabletop roleplayers. I look at the various story-game forums, like this one, and the amount of focus on rules remind strongly of the old d20 related forums on Wizard's site,  or the GURPS grognards on the SJ Games forums. All the talk of being Roleplaying 2.0 amounts to being another another form of rule munchkinism.

If you want to start a shit storm just try giving a answer to some roleplaying (as in acting) or narrative question without resorting to mechanics.

That characteristic of Storygames is tied in closely to their anti-GM bias.  They pretend that Forge-gaming is all about empowering the players against the authoritarian GM, but in fact, their real motive is to propel the GAME DESIGNER into the central position of authority. That's why they not only insist on the GM being unable to adjudicate, but also that the rules cannot be changed from how they are written. They overcome the "tyranny" of the group being run by one guy they all know for the tyranny of the group being run by some pretentious asshole thousands of miles away who's never even met them.