Quote from: Insufficient Metal;414486Maybe the theurge player just bitches a lot then, because he's always going on about how he doesn't have enough spells.

Not saying the MT is a bad class, I still think the single-class druid is significantly more potent overall.

I think it takes the right sort of campaign (hint: not a high combat intensity one) to make a MT worthwhile.

The only dog I'm throwing into this fight is an efficient little ratter named "a single saving throw per class is better than either than 1E or 3E method".

The first two pages of this thread were laugh-out-loud funny.  It just started in the middle of a heated argument, like a brawl spilling into the street.

Quote from: Settembrini;4145484e is like BT without crits. "Cocpit hits are no fun, lets remove the hit locations!" "Ammo hits are unfun, lets introduce unexploding ammo!"

Now...waidaminute...

I agree here, mostly. Unexpected results/setbacks create surprises that help keep play dynamic and add challenge for people who've mastered the systems.

I tried once to argue in favor of older editions having more "surprise" factor and how that could add to a campaign via unexpected results (assuming the DM is fair), but was shouted down as liking "unfun" games.  :idunno:

However, my non-TTRPG playing friends (ie, normal people) were obsessed with nethack, and that's the most brutal AD&D CRPG clone I'm aware of.  The game purposefully fucked with you in so many ways, and yet they found it entirely enjoyable because of how random some events were.

Quote from: Peregrin;414633However, my non-TTRPG playing friends (ie, normal people) were obsessed with nethack, and that's the most brutal AD&D CRPG clone I'm aware of.  The game purposefully fucked with you in so many ways, and yet they found it entirely enjoyable because of how random some events were.

That's because your character is an @, rather than a fictional person youve invested imagination and description in.

I would argue that the increased preciousness of PCs has been the greatest driver of change to D&D over time, but that's for a different thread.

Quote from: Melan;414475I am ambiguous about it. The multiclassing system gets around a lot of the problems that AD&D solved with new classes or kits, and if we are brutally honest, we can extend that understanding to paladins (fighter/cleric), rangers (fighter/druid, but it could be a fighter/thief if you want more Robin Hood than Aragorn) and assassins (fighter/thief). If you want to play any character type from "the standard D&D setting", the 3.0 class system can do it except maybe a real 1e-style illusionist. Ironically, it also solves the problem of demihuman level limits, which 3e removed: characters who reach their level cap simply change into another class, horrible hangup lots of people had with D&D solved instantly.

The way I visualized it was similar to GURPS Templates. Except templates were something you used at the start of the campaign to create your character. In D20 each level represented a package of advantage, skills, and possibly stat changes.

While GURPS remained my favorite RPGs, I though the D20 approach was close to ideal as far as balancing customization vs simplicity.

QuoteThat's because your character is an @, rather than a fictional person youve invested imagination and description in.

An @ in a game so difficult that you can spend countless hours trying to progress to the end and still never making it.  You may not have investment in a fictional persona, but you have huge chunks of time devoted to that particular playthrough.  In fact, I'd find that more devastating than losing a favorite PC.  I've let plenty of characters I've invested in go without a word, in fact I've stopped DMs from fudging the numbers.

For me, the risk makes it all that more dramatic.  If you introduce safety nets, it might improve "gameplay", but I don't find it as enjoyable.

Granted, it is a factor in the difference between AD&D and 3e, but I find it also depends on player expectations more than anything else.

Quote from: Hairfoot;414636That's because your character is an @, rather than a fictional person youve invested imagination and description in.

You can invest imagination and description into an @-sign. It may well be more fun if you do. Unless you're playing with miniatures, in AD&D he's not even an @ sign - he's just an idea!

There are those who will disagree, I suppose, but I try to make any first level character at least a little bit real - I think it just makes the game more engaging. It's sad if some poor bastard with 4 hit points dies before his tale amounts to much, but if he's just one of a succession of at signs gleefully blundering into a spiked pit trap "cause I can just roll atty-two when atty dies, that's more like 'depressing.'

A GM I've played with for a while now allows players to roll up a new character if his ability scores are especially poor - with the caveat that the dead PC goes to the "PC Sematary" from which he is likely to arise as an undead monster someday.

...He recently ruled that declined stat arrays must henceforth be given names before being relegated to the Sematary.

I don't disagree that an increased "preciousness" of PCs has shaped D&D's development over time. But I think in a way earlier edition PCs can be precious by virtue of their fragility!

Quote from: Peregrin;414643An @ in a game so difficult that you can spend countless hours trying to progress to the end and still never making it.  You may not have investment in a fictional persona, but you have huge chunks of time devoted to that particular playthrough.  In fact, I'd find that more devastating than losing a favorite PC.  I've let plenty of characters I've invested in go without a word, in fact I've stopped DMs from fudging the numbers.

Quote from: Cole;414644You can invest imagination and description into an @-sign.

I reckon my logged Nethack hours would hold up favourably against anyone else's record, so I'm not dismissing any of that.

It's quite different in Nethack, though, because the PC is rolled up instantly and gets straight into the action.

In a D&D game, OTOH, if a disposable 1st level PC dies, it might be a half hour of real time before the player can bring a new one in.

When a group has played out the party's introduction and journey to the dungeon of the Stirge Lord, it's a bit more frustrating when a PC dies falling down the entrance stairway.

Quote from: Hairfoot;414649When a group has played out the party's introduction and journey to the dungeon of the Stirge Lord, it's a bit more frustrating when a PC dies falling down the entrance stairway.

I don't disagree with you there. (Sometimes "a bit more frustrating" is part of RPGing, though, I do think, and that bit may buy more than its price would indicate in terms of enjoying a game.)

I also think that kicking things off with an arbitrary, basically unavoidable deathtrap probably isn't the greatest adventure design, but that's almost irrelevant to the edition or arguably the system - I.E. for the 3e character the Deadly Stairs would just need to be a little steeper.

Of course, if the stairs are visibly perilous and crumbling, and the player just sort of blithely jogs down them and falls, he has chosen his own disposability

Quote from: Cole;414651I also think that kicking things off with an arbitrary, basically unavoidable deathtrap probably isn't the greatest adventure design, but that's almost irrelevant to the edition or arguably the system - I.E. for the 3e character the Deadly Stairs would just need to be a little steeper.

Of course, if the stairs are visibly perilous and crumbling, and the player just sort of blithely jogs down them and falls, he has chosen his own disposability

You can substitute "Deadly Stairs" for "orc patrol" or similar, of course, but I'm saying that D&D design has evolved to encourage players in such situations to take the orcs down toe-to-toe rather than avoid or ambush them, because they know the PCs can do it.  That leads into the whole other discussion of whether PCs are heroes or ambitious schmucks, and whether the system encourages combat as the answer to everything, etc.

Quote from: Hairfoot;414653You can substitute "Deadly Stairs" for "orc patrol" or similar, of course, but I'm saying that D&D design has evolved to encourage players in such situations to take the orcs down toe-to-toe rather than avoid or ambush them, because they know the PCs can do it.  That leads into the whole other discussion of whether PCs are heroes or ambitious schmucks, and whether the system encourages combat as the answer to everything, etc.

I basically agree with you, although I would say that, through 3e at least, it's more that the design has evolved to "be more forgiving of players in such situations" rather than to encourage them. Though, again, it's still the question of "how steep are the stairs/how many orcs are in the patrol." I think it's only with 4e that the rules so concretely assume that "if there are monsters that can be fought, they are to be fought." The attitude long predates 4th edition, and you don't have to play 4e that way, but I do feel that it is what the rules, and their authors, take as the basis of the game.

Earlier editions, via the forefronting reaction roll, gave active support to the idea that even the Orcs you blundered into randomly might just want to negotiate or trade or just leave the situation with their asses intact. This part of the game was, and I don't think I'm surprising anyone by saying so, very often ignored, both by DMs in the privacy of their own home, or module authors enamored of the phrase "attack on sight," but it's very much there.

Anyone on here good at that thing called 'Filking'?

I keep thinking this whole argument over the past 2 or 3 years could be done in song. A song called "It's Still D&D To Me" to the tune of Billy Joel's "It's still Rock & Roll" (to me) .

Are adventurers still going into dark creepy places looking for treasure and beating up monsters?
 Then trying to get out alive?

Wasn't that always the gist of it?


- Ed C.

Quote from: Settembrini;414546Explanation by example: (I fear that is old, too): Battletech = Mechs & ultimately, their Factories. All meaning in BattleTech is derived from MechFactories.

In D&D its levelled guys and gold, used to be (AD&D) levelled guys and their armies of monsters and mercenaries.

I beg to disagree. What AD&D/D&D is about is a king/damsel in distress/shady dude in a tavern hiring the character to do something. If the character refuse, the adventure provides a list of ways to make them do it anyway. While questing, something unspeakably dire and for which the characters aren't ready for happens - and the players get their opportunity to exercise free will and the DM to lay back and have fun.

I still remember the first time I DMed "Ravenloft", the original module. East Europeanish setting, decrepit village living under the shadow of the vampire's castle... The players assume that the adventure involves delving into "the big dungeon" (the castle), defeating secondary minions and gathering clues & magic items, all of this in preparation for the final show-off with Von Zarovich.

The go to the castle and the vampire is right there, in the first hallway, incredulous: "How do you dare to violate my castle??!" TPK.

Cut to: another, new, party of adventurers stumbles - lo and behold - in the same area. But, for some reason, they are wiser and decide to put together a real plan before going "up there".

This is what D&D is about.

Quote from: Koltar;414668Anyone on here good at that thing called 'Filking'?

I keep thinking this whole argument over the past 2 or 3 years could be done in song. A song called "It's Still D&D To Me" to the tune of Billy Joel's "It's still Rock & Roll" (to me) .

http://www.enworld.org/forum/3807391-post82.html

Ah, memories.

EDIT: Ah, shoot, that's not the right one. The one I'm thinking of was funnier and had a passage that alluded to templated characters. Hmph.

Reckall, you are in a wholly different territory. "Aboutness", no please let us not go there.