Quote from: Haffrung;645074The notion that early D&D wasn't mainly about combat is one of the those persistent memes kicked out by a certain element of the OSR crowd - often people who didn't even play in the 70s and early 80s and have gotten all of their ideas about the early game from reading forums in the last few years.

When I started playing D&D in 1975, we only played in dungeons and combat (or combat-related activities, like fleeing from an encounter gone wrong) took about 50% of the session time, the other 50% was exploration-related activities and "setup stuff" (going back to town, buying equipment, gathering rumors and other info, etc.). The average combat took 5 to 10 minutes max. A long combat took 15 minutes. The average 5-6 hour dungeon session (I was in college then) saw around 20 separate combats.

Later I bought a copy of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord and the first Wilderlands set from Judge's Guild. After figuring out how to do outdoor wandering monsters (encounters with orcs were likely an orc patrol, not the entire tribe of 40D10 adult male orcs on the march), wilderness exploration, trade, and the like started competing with the dungeon. Dungeon sessions still had a lot of combat, but non-dungeon sessions usually had far less (even rolling for possible night encounters every watch) -- say, 60 to 90 minutes of the session.

Even in dungeon sessions, however, the purpose of the exploration wasn't just to be a way to string possible combat encounters together. The purpose of the expeditions was to explore and to collect treasure -- not to have exciting combats. Combat was simply something you could not always avoid if you wanted to explore the dungeon and get the treasure. In other words, combat was a sideline, not the central focus of play.

The all-combat, all-the-time groups were usually run either by killer GMs or as a wargame (as opposed to a roleplaying game -- and yes, the distinction was made fairly early on, at least in South Texas.)

Quote from: Haffrung;645074The notion that early D&D wasn't mainly about combat is one of the those persistent memes kicked out by a certain element of the OSR crowd - often people who didn't even play in the 70s and early 80s and have gotten all of their ideas about the early game from reading forums in the last few years.

Or it could be people talking about how you can play the game NOW and don't really give a rats ass about how it was "back in the day".

Quote from: Benoist;645077Early D&D was about exploration.

This may have been how it played out - I don't know, I wasn't there - but looking at the mechanics, I can't agree with this.

One of the primary classes of the game, one of the few that has been there the entire time, is the fighter. That kind of implies fighting is a big thing, at least to me.

I mean, if exploration were the focus of the game, then I would expect to see mechanics that back up that claim... but I don't. What mechanics do exist to encourage that focus are either nigh-unusable or straight-up ignored (if stories I've been told/read/etc are any indication).

As for the treasure thing: sure, loot may have given you more xp than monsters. And how often was that treasure just sitting around unguarded? I mean, come on... one of the core books is the Monster Manual. I don't think they wrote that anticipating people to not use the damn thing.

Yeah, see, GnomeWorks. You're coming at it the wrong way. You're applying your own post-3rd edition, post-Forge bias of "system matters", "the rules are the game" and all that jazz back onto a game that had nothing to do with that mentality in the first place. You're just wrong. Now, you can either accept that, or not, but repeating the same inanities over and over again will just cause you to dig a bigger hole for yourself. It's not going to make you any more right, because you just are not.

I know I won't be able to convince you of that, because your mind is made up and now your back is against the wall, so you're going to defend your point over dozens of posts and so on. I won't be there for that. I'm just telling you: you're wrong. Read the games or better yet, play them with a competent DM. Learn what it is you are talking about. Then you'll look back and realize how ignorant what you just said really sounded.

The portion size a rulebook contains toward a rules section does not wholly relate to its table impact, as tempting a facile association may be made. Possibly influencing, but never more than GM, setting, or players. Otherwise experience and treasure would be an oversight and so many tables would be locked in discussions of alignment, movement, and shopping.

Having ran (and ran through) multiple D&D sessions in very different campaign styles, I can easily attest that combat can be a mere afterthought, if the players are so inclined. The combat rules are so involved because it's the easiest spot to notice where a "shot you!" "did not!" contest would occur.

Quote from: Benoist;645089Yeah, see, GnomeWorks. You're coming at it the wrong way. You're applying your own post-3rd edition, post-Forge bias of "system matters", "the rules are the game" and all that jazz back onto a game that had nothing to do with that mentality in the first place. You're just wrong.

i.e. this isn't poker.

nor is this

Quote from: Opaopajr;645093The portion size a rulebook contains toward a rules section does not wholly relate to its table impact, as tempting a facile association may be made. Possibly influencing, but never more than GM, setting, or players. Otherwise experience and treasure would be an oversight and so many tables would be locked in discussions of alignment, movement, and shopping.

Not to mention that the rules on combat are actually fairly small in TSRD&D, certainly a smaller portion of the rules than in either WOTCD&D.

Well if were all about page number size, there'd be magic spells going off all the time, regardless of their spell levels. However you can have whole parties without Wizards or Priests, let alone the DMG discussing whole settings without magic. Imagine that. Seeds of their own destruction, it must have been.
:idunno:

A lot of people figured out D&D's game mode from published adventures. Even a "puzzly" dungeon like White Plume Mountain has a fuckload of combat encounters that you pretty much can't avoid. And the G series? Bloodbaths. Whether revisionist jihadists admit it or not, hack and slash was always a popular - and probably the default - mode of play.

Quote from: Haffrung;645111A lot of people figured out D&D's game mode from published adventures. Even a "puzzly" dungeon like White Plume Mountain has a fuckload of combat encounters that you pretty much can't avoid. And the G series? Bloodbaths. Whether revisionist jihadists admit it or not, hack and slash was always a popular - and probably the default - mode of play.

I'm going to pull an Alexandrian and cite myself.

Quote from: Rincewind1;644513I'll be foolish enough to walk into this manhole.

A conception that DnD is about fighting monster is the same misconception that brought the wide fan dislike of Diablo 3 (or the dislike/failure of 4e, come to think of it) - not because it was a bad game, but because it was based on misconceptions of previous games. This guy will explain it funnier than I:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I22Ivb8ELzQ

Sure, you can treat DnD as just fighting monsters - but then you deliberatively choose to shallow your own experience, just as you can choose to treat Prachett's work as pure humour rather than clever social commentary, or to simply chomp on good food in a restaurant - you get your enjoyment/nourishment, it's fun all the same, but you miss out on some stuff.

DnD is about raising from a guy who can be killed by a goblin in one to one combat, to a guy who commands his own castle and starts combating not goblins, but lords and kings, and eventually, if his bones do not litter the various dungeons or battlefields, he may become a (demi)god. Killing monsters is means to an end, not the end itself - unless you deliberatively choose to do so. Just because you choose to gobble a fine goblet of wine in one go, it does not mean it wasn't created with intention of savouring it.

And my gripe is that sometimes a tavern should be just a tavern, a man/women should be just someone you try to bed, not a quest point.

And no, I didn't know DnD from Adam, it's not my favourite system, I have systems that I find much better (Warhammer & BRP). But it handles nicely enough to my certain needs, aka a mix between high fantasy/sword and sorcerery campaign.

And for some proof - Combat in Rules Cyclopedia takes 13 pages...and 12 pages of Siege & Mass combat rules, almost as long as the hack & slash rules. Rules for Strongholds & Dominions take 9 pages - almost the same as combat. A bit too much for a PnP Diablo, I'd say.

Quote from: Piestrio;645095i.e. this isn't poker.

nor is this

Eh, comparing competitive games to RPGs (even poker - I assume you are relating to the number of variants of poker) isn't entirely proper. Since RPGs are, for the most part, collaborative, you needn't worry so much about clarity of rules and agreement on those rules, since everyone's on the same side, so to speak - even the GM isn't trying to kill the party, just creates a challenging world, and victory is entertainment, so to speak. Competitive games, on the other hand, especially when money's at stake, demand clear rules that are known and fair to all participants, since everyone ought to be trying for the victory - that is the shared enjoyment of the competitive game, after all. Playing it is fun as well, of course, but the fun, in a large part, comes from overcoming an invested opponent.

That is why it is not so important in RPGs that a wizard may be more powerful than warrior in the party (since they are in one party anyway, and ought wizard start to play dick, the warrior can always cut his throat in his sleep), but it is important in a board game about fighting that wizard is mechanically on a same or at least similar power level to fighter - he may be easier to play, but warrior may be more powerful once you understand his tactical potential, etc. etc.

Quote from: Haffrung;645111A lot of people figured out D&D's game mode from published adventures. Even a "puzzly" dungeon like White Plume Mountain has a fuckload of combat encounters that you pretty much can't avoid. And the G series? Bloodbaths. Whether revisionist jihadists admit it or not, hack and slash was always a popular - and probably the default - mode of play.

It'd be nice if you took your head out of your ass-cheeks and realized that nobody's talking about whether combat had a big part to play in the D&D game from the start or not: it did, and it does.

The contention is whether combat was THE focus of the game throughout its iterations, and THIS is flat-out wrong. And I know that from playing the game personally, from reading through OD&D and AD&D thoroughly, from talking to people like Rob Kuntz, Luke and Ernie Gygax and what their games, game-mastered or played, felt like, and everything tells me that the idea bandied about ever since Mike Mearls started talking about D&D being about "killing things and taking their stuff" on his livejournal is total bullshit.

Now you might have played with DMs that made it all about combat and construed "hack and slash" as just kicking a door, rolling to hit and getting the treasure for whoever was left standing, but that's not what hack and slash actually is, that's not how the game was played originally, and that's certainly not how the game books of OD&D and AD&D formulated it either, if you cared to re-read them and got over your own bloody bias.

Quote from: Benoist;645120It'd be nice if you took your head out of your ass-cheeks and realized that nobody's talking about whether combat had a big part to play in the D&D game from the start or not: it did, and it does.

The contention is whether combat was THE focus of the game throughout its iterations, and THIS is flat-out wrong. And I know that from playing the game personally, from reading through OD&D and AD&D thoroughly, from talking to people like Rob Kuntz, Luke and Ernie Gygax and what their games, game-mastered or played, felt like, and everything tells me that the idea bandied about ever since Mike Mearls started talking about D&D being about "killing things and taking their stuff" on his livejournal is total bullshit.

Now you might have played with DMs that made it all about combat and construed "hack and slash" as just kicking a door, rolling to hit and getting the treasure for whoever was left standing, but that's not what hack and slash actually is, that's not how the game was played originally, and that's certainly not how the game books of OD&D and AD&D formulated it either, if you cared to re-read them and got over your own bloody bias.

Heck, even by 3e DMM the "kick in the door" is differentiated as one of the playstyles, and by the tone, not suggested as the primary one.

Quote from: xech;645034Not really. It was due to the arrogance of Wotc to think it could have D&D fans substitute their game for a monthly subscription to a virtual board game decorated with D&D art.

Sure, but why didn't those fans migrate to, say, 2E WFRP, or True20, or GURPS, or Runequest? It's because they specifically wanted the 3.X experience and Pathfinder was offering it, and they were offering it with better support than anyone else putting out a 3.X clone on the market.

Quote from: Benoist;645089You're just wrong.

Yes, and your incredibly large body of evidence has convinced me of that comple- oh, wait.

QuoteI know I won't be able to convince you of that, because your mind is made up and now your back is against the wall, so you're going to defend your point over dozens of posts and so on.

You know how I know you know nothing about me?

Anyway.

System does matter. Perhaps not for the reasons that Edwards claimed it does, but it is relevant. System impacts how and why decisions are made. D&D has a certain systemic feel to it, and that is why you favor it over other games (I assume - if not the case, then feel free to replace "D&D" with whatever system you actually favor). Arguments that system is irrelevant are just childish backlash against the swine.

You try to claim that D&D has never been about hack and slash, that there's this whole history of groups that would run from encounters, try turning monsters against each other, clever manipulation of situations... yet all I hear are stories. I have never seen anything like this in actual play. I have never heard about these things happening from gamers I talk to in real life that play older editions of D&D. This style doesn't even seem to occur to most of the gamers I talk to - and these are older folks, who grew up with older editions of the game.

Am I saying that that style is impossible in D&D? No. Maybe I just have a limited experience, though the gaming circles I have been in are rather large, so I would argue against that. Hell, that style of play is along the lines of what I've been aiming for in the design of my current project.

Quote from: HaffrungAbout 50 per cent combat, 30 per cent exploration, 20 per cent misc roleplay.

This, right here. I doubt any particular set of numbers ascribed to division of play in older D&D is going to be incredibly accurate - differences in style and such, and most people I know wouldn't track the time they spend doing certain types of things while gaming - but this seems reasonable enough. As an aggregate, obviously; I'd assume individual sessions vary wildly, but over time, these averages seem reasonable.

There is nothing wrong with this division of play, and this is what I was getting at: combat tends to take up the largest amount of time and be the focus more often. If you interpreted what I said - that combat is the focus of D&D - as implying that D&D is "all combat all the time," then my apologies for being unclear. Later editions certainly lend themselves to it more, but I would argue this is because there is a greater mechanical focus on combat and less importance placed on non-combat (again, through mechanical means).

I mean, hell - look at the vast majority of modules. Most of them have a hefty amount of combat (or potential combat, since I suppose you could theoretically avoid them). That is not to say there is no interaction or exploration in them, but those elements usually not as strongly present as combat. That rather implies that combat is an important focal point of the game.

Quote from: Rincewind1;645115Eh, comparing competitive games to RPGs (even poker - I assume you are relating to the number of variants of poker) isn't entirely proper.

Actually, I think the point being made is a cogent one.

The rules of poker (as expressed in Hoyle's, or whichever source you want to roll with), and the implements you play poker with (cards and chips) do not constitute the poker experience. More than that, the most important aspect of poker has absolutely nothing to do with any written rules, and nothing to do with the implements used to play the game.

That, of course, is bluffing.

Imagine an alien robot comes to our planet. Because it's a robot, it is a super-genius but is also not very imaginative; given a set of rules, it can master and them rapidly and craft an optimal playing strategy based on them, but if something isn't mentioned in the rules it's not going to take it into account. Because it's an alien, it's never encountered poker before - never played it, never seen anyone played it, never encountered any of the idioms associated with it, never read a story featuring it, doesn't even know it exists.

Now, give the alien robot a summary of the rules of Texas Hold 'Em. It will consider the probabilities of drawing each card, it will consider the probabilities of assembling each hand, it will probably be quite good at card-counting. Then sit the robot down at the table and make it play.

It will lose, hard, because the rules never mentioned bluffing, and success at poker hinges so much on bluffing that someone playing exclusively based on the balance of probabilities will not prosper long.

Likewise, a lot of the actual draw of a tabletop RPG is poorly related at best in the rules. Actual roleplaying in terms of adopting the point of view of your character isn't really mentioned at all in OD&D and the idea isn't developed very much in subsequent games except for in examples of play and other "for beginners" material. The fact that the rules spend a lot of time on combat doesn't necessarily mean that combat is what is important - it could, equally, mean that a lot of game mechanics are needed in association with combat because in a tabletop RPG you can't very well replicate combat by LARPing it out.

Fair enough Warthur and point conceded. Though in general I found a lot of Balance is Law foolishness rooted around the concept that board games = RPGs, henceforth my instinctive raising of claws.