TheRPGSite

Cross-posted from my Blog...

It occurs to me as I play PF/3.5 as written that my preferences for a less grid/movement/tactical game come not only from a preference for a certain style of play, i.e. narrative v. tactical, but perhaps primarily derive from how I define character classes.


My preferences for character classes go back to the original Red Box stuff, where you had a guy who swings a sword, a guy who steals stuff, a guy who can pray and have actual miracles occur as a result, and a guy who can use magic.  I like those 4 archetypes because they are very basic, and because (outside of the magic and miracles) they represented what an ordinary guy Western Europe in the middle ages could do.  


For example, a guy in the middle ages who was a warrior swung a heavy piece of sharp metal.  The more he swung it and prevailed in combat, the better he got at swinging it.  The guy who steals stuff had to rely on his physical body to move around silently, and his wits to determine if there were traps, or people he didn't trust.  The more he was successful, he became more experienced, and became better at doing what he did best.


The rules of Basic D&D let me determine if an ordinary guy who fights with a sword or steals is successful at what he is trying to do.  In other words, you have an average guy who is good with a sword.  He is not supernaturally strong, nor does he have any powers a guy in Western Europe in 1345 AD wouldn't have had. He is not as strong as a giant, nor could he ever grow to be.  If I wanted to determine if that guy in a magic free world swung his sword and hit something, the rules of D&D Basic Set give me the ability to do so.  They don't give me any rules for something an average Western European in 1345 AD couldn't do.  This is the natural world, the same one we all live in today. The rules for these two character classes just describe what we can already do in the natural world, both then and now, and help us adjudicate chances for success.  You could run a game of D&D set in the medieval European world of Earth using the Red Box rules for fighter and thief and its combat rules.


That's the base of the game.  Let's call it the natural world.


Then you have the overlay of magic and miracles on top of it. Let's call this the fantasy overlay, level 1.  In addition to being able to wield a weapon and wear armor, a guy can also cause miracles to occur, as a result of the direct intervention of a deity he worships. Another guy can also tap into mystical forces which are real, and cause fire to spring from his hands and burn his foes. They both tap into the forces of the supernatural.  Certain elements of fantasy books, magazines and movies of the time were basically added to the natural world, and we now have normal people living in the natural world, some of which have the ability to do the fantastic, or tap into the supernatural.  In all cases though, the magic or miracle was something that was outside of you. You were a normal man who was able to tap into something outside of yourself and make it affect the world around you. The character wasn't himself magical, fantastic, or supernatural in any way.  


Next we have supernatural creatures added into the combination of natural world and fantasy overlay 1.  Let's call this fantasy overlay 2.  Some of the less fantastic creatures can be played as classes, and some are there to interact with in other ways (mostly just to kill and take their stuff).  Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, etc. represent classic fantasy creatures, with rules which determine their ability to do things in certain circumstances. These races are not as powerful as most of the other fantastic creatures, but are more numerous.  They are inspired from classic mythology and other fantasy elements of the time when the rules were written.  The rules describe how the abilities they were portrayed as having in mythology or in the literature of the day function and interact with the natural world.


There was a strict division in the classes humans were able to play.  You were one of the 4, and there was no overlap in abilities.  You were either someone who fought, stole, used magic, or caused miracles to occur.  


Again though, until we added the fantasy layers, the rules represented reality and how to deal with real life situations that would have occurred in 1345 AD or 2009 AD, assuming we stole without the use of technology and fought with medieval weapons in 2009.  The classes represented that reality.


Classes in later editions don't start off in the natural world.  They are inherently supernatural, jumping right into, stemming from, and are an inherent part of fantasy overlay 2.  How else do you describe a race/class combo that can teleport at will?  Or push a dragon a distance just by using a power?  Or a swordsman who can target, mark, curse, put an oath on, or otherwise affect his foes magically before he even swings a sword? Or heal himself at will?  Is this ability inherent in everyone who lives in the land? Making them all supernatural? Or can it be learned?  Making humans all latently supernatural? Are these people even human anymore?


Just so you don't think I'm picking on 4e, to use 3.x examples, how can someone shoot 2 arrows at once with any accuracy in the real world?  Or not be penalized for shooting arrows into an ever-shifting melee combat?  Or not be penalized when swinging a sword at someone when you're blind?  Or hit four people with one swing of the sword with equal effectiveness?  Or trip or grapple a guy 2 or 3 times your weight? Or grow in strength to be as strong as a supernatural creature 10 times his weight?  Would a guy with a sword in England in 1345 AD be able to do that?


The reality we are starting with in the later editions is not natural, it is supernatural, or superheroic at least.  It's a world where the adventurer is not the average guy who got good with a sword, but something not human as we would describe it on earth in 2009.  Supernatural abilities are built into the class, and the class doesn't describe what a person primarily does (as in swings a sword, steals, causes miracles or casts spells), as much as it describes a list of inherent supernatural or superheroic abilities or powers that a person has. The rules no longer start with a basis of reality in the natural world. They start with a basis in a reality I can no longer identify with, either because I am not involved with or don't like the latest literary, film, or computer game influences, or because of some other reason.



I can understand that some fighters may be better with a bow than they are with a sword due to specializing in it, and that a thief may be a cat burglar rather than a pick pocket. To the extent the rules allow for such specialization, I agree with them.  But other than casting spells due to arcane study or making miracles due to devotion to a diety, I don't agree with rules which represent a reality not present in 1345 AD England.


Not surprisingly, I also don't agree with multiclassing without serious penalties.  Each profession of the four above requires much hard work and discipline to achieve mastery in.  When you dabble in two fields which each require total focus to master and get better at, there ought to be a seriously huge penalty to how fast you can achieve mastery in each (level up) when you are dividing your attention.


To the extent someone may argue that some of these classes from later editions are simply characters with multiclassed abilities integrated so as to make a new class, or a prestige class, I also call BS on it.  It has no basis in reality, because you are essentially starting as human and melding into your very being supernatural or magical abilities, so that they manifest in a sword fighter who can channel electricity bolts from their being through their sword on a successful hit.   Or who can blink in and out of a this phase of existence, like a phase spider, and strike down a foe without them seeing you coming, not due to casting a spell, and channeling energy outside of yourself, but by using energy and power you somehow have made a part of yourself.  Again, you're no longer human.


To the extent a class system is more based in the natural world, with magic or miracles being something a special class of adventurer has to cast spells to achieve, who is a normal human being in every respect other than their ability to cast spells,  I like the game system better.  Likewise, to the extent all playable races have abilities which aren't magical or supernatural (like the ability to cast faerie fire) but are rather the product of them living in a certain environment and being in tune with it due to the nature of their race (detect stonework traps), I like those races better.


Was I imprinted by my early experiences to therefore like certain editions and styles more than others?  Yup.  Obviously.  Does it matter to me what someone else plays?  Nope.  Enjoy it.  I just write these essays and experiment with newer systems to help me to better define what I like in a game, and why I like it.  There is no one game system which is inherently better than others, except on a personal level, due to personal preference.

The idea that earlier editions better model historical reality is unfounded. The cleric is based on 70's exploitation films, and how elves, dwarves and the catoblepas fit into England: 1345 is unclear. For that matter, moving beyond the mediaeval period, it was difficult to create a hero like Diomedes, Odysseus or Achilles in older editions _because_ the game lacked heroic powers (how does even a 20th level fighter do something like Achilles' shout?)

If you want to play historical, naturalistic games, I suggest you look elsewhere than any edition of D&D.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;339183The idea that earlier editions better model historical reality is unfounded. The cleric is based on 70's exploitation films, and how elves, dwarves and the catoblepas fit into England: 1345 is unclear. For that matter, moving beyond the mediaeval period, it was difficult to create a hero like Diomedes, Odysseus or Achilles in older editions _because_ the game lacked heroic powers (how does even a 20th level fighter do something like Achilles' shout?)

If you want to play historical, naturalistic games, I suggest you look elsewhere than any edition of D&D.

Either I didn't make it clear or you missed it.  Fighters and thieves in the Red Box can be set in 1345 England.  The rules can be used to adjudicate what they did back then.  Except for spells, a cleric is basically a priest in armor trained to use blunt weapons in combat.  The rules work for him too.   The magic user without spells is just someone who sucks at combat.  The rules work for him too.  He could have been an alchemist in 1345.

I never said demihumans fit into 1345.  I said humans did.   To quote myself:

"There was a strict division in the classes humans were able to play. You were one of the 4, and there was no overlap in abilities. You were either someone who fought, stole, used magic, or caused miracles to occur.

Again though, until we added the fantasy layers, the rules represented reality and how to deal with real life situations that would have occurred in 1345 AD or 2009 AD, assuming we stole without the use of technology and fought with medieval weapons in 2009. The classes represented that reality."

I also never said anything about moving beyond the medieval period.  You introduced that.  I never said I wanted to create a hero out of that period, or a hero in general.  I never mentioned the word hero, just adventurer.  

I agree with you that a game like Red Box which lacks heroic powers can't mimic Achilles or Odysseus.  I don't like to play those kids of games. That's pretty much the overall point of my post.

Heroes v. Adventurers and the mindset the two terms indicate and how that mindset affects a RPG game is a topic for a whole other post.

If you are looking to game in 1345, play Warhammer Roleplay.  Or better yet, play Cthulhu Dark Ages.  

D&D is really great at being D&D.  Gygax was very clear that the rules don't mimic any kind of reality outside his desire to translate pulp fiction, fairy tales and Hollywood adventures into a game.

Quote from: Spinachcat;339187If you are looking to game in 1345, play Warhammer Roleplay.  Or better yet, play Cthulhu Dark Ages.  

D&D is really great at being D&D.  Gygax was very clear that the rules don't mimic any kind of reality outside his desire to translate pulp fiction, fairy tales and Hollywood adventures into a game.

For me, the older styles of the game mimic 1345 just fine.

I got to say I find it hard to imagine D&D thieves in the middle ages. Remove trap? What traps did they have in the middle ages?

@Joe: What.

Seriously, my mind melted over as soon as I read the term "fantasy overlay".

And I didn't like how he pretty much ignored Spinachat's and Pseudo's suggestions which were pretty on the mark.

I imagine there are many systems that can model England of 1345 once you exicise the bulk of their rules, character options and adversaries.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;339192@Joe: What.

Seriously, my mind melted over as soon as I read the term "fantasy overlay".

And I didn't like how he pretty much ignored Spinachat's and Pseudo's suggestions which were pretty on the mark.

Judging by the responses I've gotten so far, perhaps its just a shittily written article, trying to explain things the way my warped noggin understands them.  :)

Quote from: JoethelawyerThere was a strict division in the classes humans were able to play.  You were one of the 4, and there was no overlap in abilities.  You were either someone who fought, stole, used magic, or caused miracles to occur.

I have exactly the opposite problem. If a character has one ability, you can extrapolate everything else they can do in a game like that. "Hey look, he's climbing a wall... he must also be able to hide in shadows, backstab, and steal stuff."

Unrelated skill sets get linked in silly ways in a one class system. I prefer skill systems myself.

QuoteAgain though, until we added the fantasy layers, the rules represented reality and how to deal with real life situations that would have occurred in 1345 AD or 2009 AD, assuming we stole without the use of technology and fought with medieval weapons in 2009.  The classes represented that reality.

Hiding in shadows? No cover, no adequate concealment... just shadows.

QuoteJust so you don't think I'm picking on 4e, to use 3.x examples, how can someone shoot 2 arrows at once with any accuracy in the real world?

Special training for a more rapid rate of fire? I don't think the idea is that you're firing twice with one shot. Even that's a pretty cliche thing since... I dunno... one or another iteration of Robin Hood.

QuoteOr not be penalized for shooting arrows into an ever-shifting melee combat?

There's a penalty for that. And a chance to hit the wrong guy.

QuoteOr not be penalized when swinging a sword at someone when you're blind?

There's no guaruntee you're targeting the right square, blind fight or no. It's a flat 50% miss chance for most folks. Also an old trope. See Zatoichi.

QuoteOr hit four people with one swing of the sword with equal effectiveness?

Knights of Roland had folks chopping their foes in half and then chopping their foes' horses in half... I'd say the multi-foe slash up is a pretty old trope. In the rules it rarely comes to four guys.

QuoteOr trip or grapple a guy 2 or 3 times your weight?

Huge bonuses/penalties for size in the grappling system. Trying this is a great way to get pwnt in the RAW.

QuoteOr grow in strength to be as strong as a supernatural creature 10 times his weight?

The old stories with the Paladins under Charlemagne? One guy went berzerk and started tearing up trees and such... literally disfuguring the landscape wherever he rampaged. Normal guy up until then.

And barbarian's rage doesn't go that far at all. It gives you like... +4 to strength. Human max is 18. Bump that up by 4 and you've got... what? Orc strength? Bugbear strength? Certainly not Ogre strength.

My 3.x games are hardly "superhuman." At least unless someone starts drowning in combat... which takes too damn long.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;339195Judging by the responses I've gotten so far, perhaps its just a shittily written article, trying to explain things the way my warped noggin understands them.

Made sense to me. You prefer earlier versions of D&D because, to your mind, they were more based in reality than later versions.

Of the four basic classes, the fighter and thief did not have any characteristics that were fantastic or impossible for humans of around 1345 Europe. The magic user and cleric do display fantastic elements, but these elements are outside forces the character is channelling. The character itself remains fully human. For this reason you separate these fantastic elements from others. Fantastic elements which are innate to the character or creature you place in a separate group. Unusual traits by human standards that can be explained by the physiognomy or culture of the creature are more acceptable to you than traits which can only be fantastical. Hobbits moving silently, okay. Dwarves being brilliant with all forms of stone working, okay. Basilisks turning people to stone with their gaze, not so okay.

You don't enjoy later editions of D&D as much because in your opinion even the mundane classes are not normal humans with perhaps access to external fantastic powers, but beings with innate fantastic powers. Not human, by your estimation.

The piece reads to me as a clearly reasoned and well presented explanation of your tastes. It does not attack anyone else's taste or claim special status for your tastes.

No wonder it blew their tiny minds. :p

Tiny minds? Fuck you, Gordon. A lot of people understood what joe was saying. My problems with it is that a lot of the things that joe said were outright absurd.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;339214Tiny minds? Fuck you, Gordon. A lot of people understood what joe was saying. My problems with it is that a lot of the things that joe said were outright absurd.

Since it's all subjective, their absurdity is pretty much irrelevant.  To address the point by point 3.5/Pathfinder abilities I listed and which were rebutted by someone above, feats bypass or give most of the abilities I listed.  I got most of the list from the Pathfinder feat list.

In any case, as Gordon put it, it was just "explanation of your tastes. It does not attack anyone else's taste or claim special status for your tastes."

To pick apart someone's subjective basis for their tastes is a waste of time.  I figured people would post replies talking about their personal basis for why they like the editions they like best. Didn't figure it would get into nitpicky fights.

I just don't dig the power level of 4E. The description of combat posted by Casual Oblivion left me cold. I've read some descriptions of 4E combats that sounded kinda of cool.....but it's not really a game for me. But then again old school play does not really inspire me either the exception being the BECMI edition of D&D and of course 3E (which I don't consider D&D but rather a generic fantasy system.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: JoethelawyerSince it's all subjective, their absurdity is pretty much irrelevant.  To address the point by point 3.5/Pathfinder abilities I listed and which were rebutted by someone above, feats bypass or give most of the abilities I listed.  I got most of the list from the Pathfinder feat list.

I dunno, some things seemed disingenuous, like the reading of blindfight (even before the 50% miss chance, you've got 1/9 odds of picking the right square to attack, assuming there's even anyone there to attack).

I can totally understand that some things just don't click sometimes. For me it's the "mundane extraordinaries" being encounters/dailies in 4e. Hell, Vancian magic has never clicked with me for I'm sure very similar reasons.

And I can think of plenty of things in 3e... but usually once you get into supplements and prestige classes. Nothing irks me more than the overabundance of energy damage. Ooh... the bard might be a good core example. The idea that singing is inherently magical? WTF?

QuoteTo pick apart someone's subjective basis for their tastes is a waste of time.  I figured people would post replies talking about their personal basis for why they like the editions they like best. Didn't figure it would get into nitpicky fights.

Sure I was nitpicky, but I didn't mean to start a fight or anything. Just saying that my 3.5 games see characters falling great distances and (almost) drowning in a puddle unconscious while the party can barely hold their ground against an undead onslaught upstairs, or cielings caving in on people who are then pinned and swarmed by centipedes. Hardly the realm of "superhuman just 'cause."

Quote from: Soylent Green;339191I got to say I find it hard to imagine D&D thieves in the middle ages. Remove trap? What traps did they have in the middle ages?

The character that Mathew Broderick played in LADYHAWKE , Philippe the Mouse, would work quite well as a Basic D&D character.


- Ed C.

Quote from: beejazz;339222I dunno, some things seemed disingenuous, like the reading of blindfight (even before the 50% miss chance, you've got 1/9 odds of picking the right square to attack, assuming there's even anyone there to attack).

I can totally understand that some things just don't click sometimes. For me it's the "mundane extraordinaries" being encounters/dailies in 4e. Hell, Vancian magic has never clicked with me for I'm sure very similar reasons.

And I can think of plenty of things in 3e... but usually once you get into supplements and prestige classes. Nothing irks me more than the overabundance of energy damage. Ooh... the bard might be a good core example. The idea that singing is inherently magical? WTF?


Sure I was nitpicky, but I didn't mean to start a fight or anything. Just saying that my 3.5 games see characters falling great distances and (almost) drowning in a puddle unconscious while the party can barely hold their ground against an undead onslaught upstairs, or cielings caving in on people who are then pinned and swarmed by centipedes. Hardly the realm of "superhuman just 'cause."

yeah i agree with the bard thing. i should have quoted that instead.  Since we don't play prestige classes, I was short of examples at my fingertips, other than the general melding of magic and swordplay i see so often.   I just went ot the feats list and found ones that seems to not make sense like shooting 2 arrows at once, or hitting a few people with the same effectiveness with one swing.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;339216Didn't figure it would get into nitpicky fights.

You do realize where you are posting right?

Quote from: Bookwyrm;339229You do realize where you are posting right?

yeah i know.  :)  i tried to make it as inoffensive and non-judgmental and personal to only me myself and i as possible.  it's admittedly a completely subjective post, yet meant to offend no one.   alas...

Quote from: Joethelawyer;339216To pick apart someone's subjective basis for their tastes is a waste of time.  I figured people would post replies talking about their personal basis for why they like the editions they like best. Didn't figure it would get into nitpicky fights.

Now why would you figure that? ;)

I liked D&D. Looking at it now i see a lot of WTF bits, but in the day i had a lot of fun playing it. I'd pick up the dice right now to play a one-shot or two just for fun. I was always unhappy with Vancian magic and other elements that were only explainable in game mechanics.

When AD&D came out i jumped on it. It expanded the scope of D&D, but that expansion began to strain some of the points i had difficulty with in D&D. More things were explicitly dealt with by the rules and a fair portion of those were explainable only as rules. Hit points for me went from odd abstraction to annoyance. High level characters virtually immune to death by falling or other environmental means that should be unaffected by how great a swordsman they are? Fine until dead? (Addressed in 4E with 'bloodied'. Thank you. But what the fuck are healing surges? A game simulating itself. A rule anchored solely in other rules.) Expansions and setting just added more rules that reference only rules. I played some of the extra rules at other tables, but i never added them to my library.

AD&D2e cleaned up the rules, but it did not simplify them. I largely gave 2e a miss as it was improving the aspects of the game i didn't enjoy.

I tried D&D3e and 3.5. In both cases i found the game had become even more self referential than ever. Powers, traits, and feats that were rule effects first and last. I found all the cool things you could do in the rules restricted the cool things you could do. If your character didn't have the rule, you couldn't be cool.

I've only glanced at 4E. From that glance and from what its advocates say, it sounds as if it has progressed even further down the path of modelling itself.

Yes, i'm a pansy storyteller. I don't like rule gamesmanship to be a significant factor in the cool things my character can do. I like rules that support my decisions quickly, cleanly, and with a minimum of fuss. I frequently got into trouble in 3.0 and 3.5 using tactics that made sense in the real world (or the real world plus fantastic bits) but were woefully suboptimal compared to rule-on-rule tweeks. I happily think in the rules when playing Pente or Carcassonne, but when playing an RPG i want to think in the story.

When measured against my tastes, i have found the default style of play each successive edition of D&D to be more focused on the rules and less on the adventure. The pieces on a chess board move the way they do because that is how pieces on a chess board move. In a roleplaying game, i'm looking for something that will let me resolve decision points in an adventure. To my tastes, each successive edition of D&D has moved towards the game piece and away from the character.

The rules have certainly improved from edition to edition. 4E is a much more sophisticated game than AD&D1e was. But if AD&D1e was purple, 4E has distilled out the red whereas what i liked in AD&D1e was the blue.

I think i had a very similar trajectory to you, Joe, but for different reasons. While you found each edition more fantastic, i found each edition more self-referential. They are not entirely dissimilar complaints. While it sounds like you disliked fantastic elements that referred only to themselves, i disliked any aspect of the rules that referred only to itself.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;339183The idea that earlier editions better model historical reality is unfounded. The cleric is based on 70's exploitation films, and how elves, dwarves and the catoblepas fit into England: 1345 is unclear.

D&D has always owed more to the apocryphal Wild West than anything historical.

Monsters, however, do help portray the world that many people believed they inhabited in the Middle Ages.  D&D pulls the alternate history trick by assuming that there really were monsters in the wilderness and gnomes underground, rather than just disease, coal gas explosions and more humans.

Quote from: beejazz;339205I have exactly the opposite problem. If a character has one ability, you can extrapolate everything else they can do in a game like that. "Hey look, he's climbing a wall... he must also be able to hide in shadows, backstab, and steal stuff."

Unrelated skill sets get linked in silly ways in a one class system. I prefer skill systems myself.

OD&D/Swords & Wizardry deserves a shout-out here.  Using those systems, a fighting man can be anything the player wishes: a warrior, a scout, a burglar, a swashbuckler...

3E, IMO, became too complicated and tiresome in trying to get around the the part-and-parcel nature of classes by using extensive skills.

Quote from: beejazz;339205I have exactly the opposite problem. If a character has one ability, you can extrapolate everything else they can do in a game like that. "Hey look, he's climbing a wall... he must also be able to hide in shadows, backstab, and steal stuff."

Unrelated skill sets get linked in silly ways in a one class system. I prefer skill systems myself.

This is why I started playing and GMing Runequest back in the day. With the RQ skills system, I could have a Wizard who also trained to use a sword. Or A thief with a spell or two. That and the mixed armor system, where you could piece together different armor types.

Pre-3.5 D&D was a lot of good things, but "realistic" wasn't one of them.

That you have character classes at all is the first loopiness in realism terms.

Quote from: Hairfoot;339239OD&D/Swords & Wizardry deserves a shout-out here.  Using those systems, a fighting man can be anything the player wishes: a warrior, a scout, a burglar, a swashbuckler...

I have to agree with this.  The back to basics campaign that I'm working on will eliminate the thief class.  IMO you can just play a fighter who sneaks.  Most thief functions can be roleplayed without requiring specific skills or rules.  Likewise you can rule that anyone attacking somone from behind and unwares with a melee weapon gets the effect of a backstab.  Of course, the fighter in platemail is unlikely to achieve this while the fighter in leather armour who told the DM he is sneaking into position has a good chance of pulling it off.

Quote from: beejazz;339205I have exactly the opposite problem. If a character has one ability, you can extrapolate everything else they can do in a game like that. "Hey look, he's climbing a wall... he must also be able to hide in shadows, backstab, and steal stuff."

Unrelated skill sets get linked in silly ways in a one class system. I prefer skill systems myself.

Unless of course you take levels in more than one class.

I don't recall if you could do that in Red Box or not, but you could in 1e AD&D.

Quote from: The Shaman;339248Unless of course you take levels in more than one class.

I don't recall if you could do that in Red Box or not, but you could in 1e AD&D.

Red Box, no, though a race like elf had both fighter and magic user abilities but then again, if you saw someone with pointy ears you could extrapolate what they could do...

Quote from: Joethelawyer;339195Judging by the responses I've gotten so far, perhaps its just a shittily written article, trying to explain things the way my warped noggin understands them. :)

I like what you said in the abstract, but I don't agree with your examples.
 
For me, it was WotC's self avowed goal of creating a D&D fantasy style that was distinct from the real life middle ages, whereas IIRC, older D&D games had 40,000 kinds of polearms because if it was good enough for an unabridged dictionary, it's good enough for D&D! And if vorpal blades went snicker snack and chopped off heads of jabberwocks then by golly so would the D&D version. And generaly speaking, I had a sense that even if I didn't know the original source, the 17 kinds of lanterns with their similar but slightly different rates of oil consumption, and resistance to gusts of wind were obviously based off of some kind of real world lanterns.
 
Oh right, my point. Wheras WotC tried to escape those medievalisms by creating a fantasy world. Other pundits have argued that the current D&Dtheme turned out too dungeonpunk, too anime, or too RAWR! but it did succeed in purging the medievalisms that were forever creeping into D&D. Which is great if you don't want to forever argue the mechanical differences between recurved, composite, and oriental bows and debate the merits of using grease pencils v.s. chalk v.s. bits of thread to map dungeons.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;339195Judging by the responses I've gotten so far, perhaps its just a shittily written article, trying to explain things the way my warped noggin understands them.  :)

to use a metaphor
We see you trying to rake leaves with an ice-chisel, and wonder why you're unwilling to consider a rake, and generally find your explanation that an ice-chisel is simple and gets the job done incredulous.

Many games do 1300's europe far easier, with cleaner rules, and wonder why you are so fixated that Red Box D&D is the only game for you.

Especially since Europe has a group you haven't covered... those who toil. They are not fighters; no kack with weapons. They are not theives; no ability to hide nor sneak. They are surely not wizards; they can't read, write, nor cast. They are not clerics; many accused them of having been forsaken by God for their poverty and squalor. D&D represents them as mere faceless nithings... and prohibits playing them. But they can be fun to play, and further, many good stories don't follow the hero's journey model of D&D character development.

Me, I genuinely don't understand why you feel the way you do, but I certainly grock that it's "good enough for you"... but it's not anywhere close to good enough for me at doing 1300's europe. Nor Conan, unless you ban clerics and wizards. It's its own thing, and that thing is unlike almost every fantasy world that predates it. (A few after do a damned good job of replicating it, tho... The Cups and Sworcery series, for example...)

Quote from: Spinachcat;339187If you are looking to game in 1345, play Warhammer Roleplay.

That's not the gist of Joe's posting as I read it. (Though I'll admit at once that the posting is too elusive to admit it nailing down to one reading.) My impression is that Joe wants UK 1345 in his game at a certain level, with further layers on top. Maybe this metaphor is bullshit, maybe it isn't. Perhaps all he meant is that player characters don't start that remotely from England 1345 (btw why not go for 1234 if you're going to hit 4 consecutive numerals on your keyboard anyhow?) but can outgrow it. (Which is one thing Warhammer characters rarely can - they are stuck in the shit, no?) Is that so remote from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions? Wasn't that a complaint of 4E designers (as per Races & Classes) that prior to 4E's advent, the D&D world was "medieval Europe with a thin layer of magic on top" when it should have been more fantastic to begin with (flying rocks and purple skies)?

My main prob with wanting a game rooted in, but capable of outgrowing 1345, would be that in D&D 3.5 PCs outgrow this 1345 too fast. By level 3 at latest they're doing crazy stuff. However, as for rooting the game more firmly in 1345, I'd suggest going the way of "Heroes are Made, not Born". That's a DungeonCrawlClassic by Goodman Games which has the PCs start out as 1st level NPCs (they take a single level of warrior, adept, or whatsitsname). If they survive the adventure, they can replace that NPC level with a PC level (no change to hit points). That's only a brief delay of "outgrowing 1345" but it's on the right track. Some people are doing something similar to 4E, by "retro-downgrading" 1st level PCs and let them advance thrice before they hit PC level 1 (so players start out with low hp, no special powers, only basic attacks etc.).

Quote from: Joethelawyer;339216To pick apart someone's subjective basis for their tastes is a waste of time.  I figured people would post replies talking about their personal basis for why they like the editions they like best. Didn't figure it would get into nitpicky fights.

Reasonable people have reasonable foundations for their opinions, and by presenting those opinions in public, they accept that those opinions and their foundations will be investigated and critiqued when found wanting by others.

To put it simply: The reasons you like OD&D are not particularly good ones. They rely on a misunderstanding of the origin, development, and rules of the game. The number of exceptions you allow to your premise renders it meaningless as a reason for liking the game. Why Vancian spellcasting wizards are more appropriate for UK 1345 than epic heroes wielding superhuman powers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Morte_d'Arthur) is unclear. Why trap-disarming thieves who belong to guilds are more appropriate than half-demons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin) is also unclear.

Either your understanding of England's state in 1345 is bizarre, or your understanding of D&D's divergence from the historical record is insufficient.

Now, that said, you may be more comfortable with a certain set of tropes due to habitual exposure, but that's not what you said, and it's of little intrinsic interest to anyone else.

Quote from: Hairfoot;339239D&D has always owed more to the apocryphal Wild West than anything historical.

Monsters, however, do help portray the world that many people believed they inhabited in the Middle Ages.  D&D pulls the alternate history trick by assuming that there really were monsters in the wilderness and gnomes underground, rather than just disease, coal gas explosions and more humans.

Sort of. Don't forget that many of the monsters D&D inserts into itself are not the monsters people in the mediaeval period would have believed were lurking around. In fact, some of the most ubiquitous monsters in D&D games - things like orcs, kobolds and hobgoblins - are very modern. Even demons and devils in D&D bear little resemblance to the mediaeval understanding of such.

Quote from: D&D 3.5, DMG II, p81A successful DUNGEONS & DRAGONS setting is neither an authentic portrayal of medieval history nor an exercise in logical extrapolation from a fantastic premise. Instead, think of it as a medieval-flavored game environment.

Your players expect to play in a world resembling the Middle Ages, but with the harsh, brutal, depressing, and serious elements stripped out. They want to explore an idealized realm of virtuous kings, shining armor, colorful tournaments, towering castles, and fearsome dragons. The setting might have its dark and challenging corners, but overall it offers a positive, escapist vision of good against evil.

How true does this ring to people's experience with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition of D&D respectively?

Okay, regarding the original post, I think it might have been phrased a bit obtusely. Joe should correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood it to mean that he doesn't like the difference between "power levels" and the attendant difference in game genre.

To wit, OD&D had characters whose abilities were roughly in line with what you see in a historical novel or film - or, for spellcasters, what you'd find in contemporary perception of medieval mysticism and magic -; whereas WotCD&D characters are in line with Marvel superhero comics; and that Joe dislikes this change.

Which, if I interpreted it correctly, is a sentiment I totally agree with.

I too like a more basic approach to character definition but don't think older D&D classes are it.  You'll also find those who exclude the theif since that is what they started with in OD&D.  There is the whole species as class thing as well.

I recall the old Giants in the Earth articles, and from my own experiences, that D&D classes (and really classes in general) don't provide the capability to model S&S fiction well within the RAW.  Certainly it hits some characters quite well, more by happenstance or these characters where in the designers mind.  

I'd have to say the old TFT split, wizard (i.e. spell-caster) and fighting man (non-spell caster) is the most basic split that IME worked far better than D&D for modeling characters with a minimum of rules.  Of course TFT had its own dynamic range problems related to character advancement. :)

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;339183. . . it was difficult to create a hero like Diomedes, Odysseus or Achilles in older editions _because_ the game lacked heroic powers (how does even a 20th level fighter do something like Achilles' shout?).

The only times I consider playing a game like Exalted or 4e D&D is when I think of ancient Greek or Sumerian heroes. It sounds like they would lend themselves to this quite well.

Quote from: Windjammer;339274How true does this ring to people's experience with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition of D&D respectively?

My 3.0 campaign came the closest to this: it was perhaps the most Tolkein-like of my homebrew settings, but it had more in common with the North than Gondor.

Otherwise, no, the environment of my games was quite different from that. Except for the fearsome dragons.

Quote from: Windjammer;339274How true does this ring to people's experience with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition of D&D respectively?

This is pretty much my experience.

Quote from: Windjammer;339274How true does this ring to people's experience with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition of D&D respectively?

Pretty accurately. If I want "historical realism" I'd rather use something like BRP.

An attempt to restate Joe's original post (correct me if I am wrong):

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Some games (including Red Box D&D) were designed by taking a representation of the real world (however imperfect), and superimposing supernatural elements onto them.

Other games (such as later edition D&D) were designed without the first layer: they made a system based on the supernatural elements, then merely filled in the gaps with realistic elements. The difference between what was natural and supernatural became unclear (for instance, the ability to fire multiple arrows at once vs. explicit spellcasting).
----

Quote from: Hieronymous Rex;339391An attempt to restate Joe's original post (correct me if I am wrong):

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Some games (including Red Box D&D) were designed by taking a representation of the real world (however imperfect), and superimposing supernatural elements onto them.

Other games (such as later edition D&D) were designed without the first layer: they made a system based on the supernatural elements, then merely filled in the gaps with realistic elements. The difference between what was natural and supernatural became unclear (for instance, the ability to fire multiple arrows at once vs. explicit spellcasting).
----

Dude, I'm gonna hire you to write my blog posts for me.  You just did it in 1/10 the space nd said essentially the same thin I was trying to communicate.  Not one of my better posts.

I don't remember how it works in Basic D&D, but in AD&D, you have more attacks with a bow than with melee attacks, and in Basic D&D, you could still create an ass-kicking Cleric or Elf.

In our current 3.5 campaign, we struggle. If not for our access to healing magic (a form of magic available in Basic D&D, by the way), we'd be pretty much screwed. I remember running AD&D, and our 3.x characters don't really feel any more powerful than our AD&D characters did. We've gotten our asses handed to us multiple times, and we've had casualties. Honestly, back in the day, my players created ass-kicking badasses in both Basic D&D and AD&D, but then....I suppose by some standards, our games would probably have been considered munchkiny. And that's fine. Different strokes for different folks. :)

Personally, I started playing Holmes Basic in 1982, and then created a consistent campaign setting that went on and off from 1986 to 2008. I could easily run this setting for various versions of Basic D&D, AD&D, and 3.x. Things haven't changed that much in regards to power. I guess I'm just not seeing it.

As for 4.x, I'm more philosophical about it now. It's not a bad game, but it is very different. Different enough that I can't really continue my old campaign setting with it, but that's ok. It has its own vibe, and that's cool. Oddly, 4e characters aren't really more powerful than characters from other editions of D&D. The increased Hit Points at low levels, powers, healing surges, and stuff give the illusion of greater power, but really...power is relative. I guess I'd say that 4e feels more blatantly supernatural than other editions of D&D, but character power is not inherently greater. Does that make sense? :o

H. rex's gloss is how I took Joe's post; I agree it makes sense, and it's also roughly in line with my tastes. Other games such as BRP or TFT offered more detail in "layer 0" but they still came out of the same fundamental design/epistemological perspective. Not surprising as they were rooted in wargaming, which to make a point that many may not understand, is more than just "complex fighty games", but also founded in a "modern" sense of realism. In this respect D&D etc. can be seen as anachronistic. But that's okay, because S&S is anachronistic, too.