Quote from: Bren;843710This is an attribute of the system.

The system doesn't make that a good way to develop your character, it only makes it a possible way to develop your character.

If Mr. One-trick-pony never needs to go anywhere without his hand forged twin katanas and never has to do anything in the game except cut things up with his twin katanas that is not an attribute of the system. That is an attribute of the play style.

If your character is too overspecialized in any game I run, then be prepared to trip over your untied shoelaces while balancing on a roof beam over the giant vat of molten lead as you sneak your way into the villain's chateau. Broiled pony...mmmmm. And good luck cutting your way out of the vat of molten led with your hand forged twin katanas.

Lets not forget that some systems can be very punishing on characters that don't hyper-specialize. This is one thing about 5E's bounded accuracy that I really like. You can created a more broadly competent character because you aren't forced to keep cramming every available resource into doing one thing just to be able to be barely competent.

This was the 3E way.  A generalist who tried to be broadly competent in a 3.X game was fairly useless at mid to high level. The DCs for everything automatically ratcheted up to provide a "challenge" for the specialists and the result was that anyone who wasn't a one trick pony might as well not try anything. In this case I see stupid one trick characters as a response to the demands of the system.

Of course there are players who will hyper-focus on one trick in ANY system, then bitch and moan when they can't be doing their stupid pet trick literally ALL the time. It's hard to convince these idiots that that might be a good idea, but oh well.

Quote from: Moracai;843561I started gaming with red box D&D. We played it exclusively for many years before trying out other systems. In all those years nobody, NOBODY I knew of played a magic-user (later known as wizard) because the rules were not in their favor at low levels. Why play a weakling wizard, when you could play an awesome fighting-man?!

How did the wizards contribute in your gaming experiences? Were they there just for identifying arcane traps and items?

My first character ever was a magic-user because of rolling 15 intelligence on 3d6 in order. The MU was crucial to getting out of a nasty situation, like being outnumbered by low level monsters that Sleep would take out; or a big reward for using Charm Person on a high-level fighter we couldn't have taken out. The attraction of the class was the potential for future power including items only that class could use.

Quote from: GeekEclectic;843647It kind of reminded me of that old story I once heard about Gygax running a dungeon at a convention, I think fairly early on in the life of D&D, and finding out that even at that point a lot of people didn't play the way his own group did. If memory serves, all but one of the groups died in the first trap -- a pit on the other side of an illusory wall.

It was a set of illusionary stairs in a pit.  I was there.  I thought it was hilarious.

Too many people wander around the dungeon like it's fucking Disneyland.

Quote from: Moracai;843561I started gaming with red box D&D. We played it exclusively for many years before trying out other systems. In all those years nobody, NOBODY I knew of played a magic-user (later known as wizard) because the rules were not in their favor at low levels. Why play a weakling wizard, when you could play an awesome fighting-man?!

How did the wizards contribute in your gaming experiences? Were they there just for identifying arcane traps and items?

Edit - Coz if so, wouldn't it be the most sensible thing to do to hire a 1st level NPC wizard for the job?

This was absolutely, totally not an issue in my entire 40+ years of D&D.

Some of us wanted to play fighters, some wanted to play magic users, some wanted to play clerics.

So we did.

Quote from: Bren;843710This is an attribute of the system.

The system doesn't make that a good way to develop your character, it only makes it a possible way to develop your character.

If Mr. One-trick-pony never needs to go anywhere without his hand forged twin katanas and never has to do anything in the game except cut things up with his twin katanas that is not an attribute of the system. That is an attribute of the play style.

If your character is too overspecialized in any game I run, then be prepared to trip over your untied shoelaces while balancing on a roof beam over the giant vat of molten lead as you sneak your way into the villain's chateau. Broiled pony...mmmmm. And good luck cutting your way out of the vat of molten led with your hand forged twin katanas.

Some systems encourage specialization more than others.

The most annoying systems are the ones that let you buy skill ranks at a flat cost per rank at character creation and then make you pay an escalating cost per rank when you spend XP.

For example at character creation you can have 5 ranks of melee and 0 ranks of gambling or 4 ranks of melee and one rank of gambling but it it costs 5 XP to go from 4 to 5 ranks of melee and only one XP to go from 0 to 1 rank of gambling.

That sort of system puts a lot of pressure to be an idiot savant right out of the gates as it saves you a lot of XP in the long run.

But in general it`s better to be really good at a few things than mediocre at a lot of things since you can only do one thing at once. That`s why in AD&D the game recognizes that a multiclassed 5 fighter/5 mu/5 cleric is vastly weaker than a character with 15 levels in any one class and sets things up accordingly.

Juat prefer games like FATE and D&D where I don`t have to make a choice between making a character who`s hyperspecialized or a character who`s going to get overshadowed at what they`re best at by characters who are hyperspecialized.

Quote from: Daztur;844054Some systems encourage specialization more than others.

Some make specialization cheaper.

QuoteThe most annoying systems are the ones that let you buy skill ranks at a flat cost per rank at character creation and then make you pay an escalating cost per rank when you spend XP.

Yeah, that's a bit silly. H+I does that, though one could do character creation based on the total XP (Advancement Point) cost. The down side is that makes character creation more of an accounting exercise like what one often sees in GURPS or HERO. Which I tend to dislike. Star Wars D6 does that too to some extent, though it has limits on how much one can specialize to start.

QuoteFor example at character creation you can have 5 ranks of melee and 0 ranks of gambling or 4 ranks of melee and one rank of gambling but it it costs 5 XP to go from 4 to 5 ranks of melee and only one XP to go from 0 to 1 rank of gambling.

I'd prefer a more accurate costing and one that doesn't differentiate between before play and after play costs in this way. But I understand the design choice of simplicity over accuracy. If I cared more about the accuracy or about balance, I'd redesign the H+I templates based on Advancement Point totals. Though I haven't done that, so I guess I don't care enough. As an exercise, I should figure out what the AP cost of each of the templates is from a set point of 0 for Qualities and Combat Abilities and assuming no careers. If, as I suspect, there is some significant cost differences, that might be a good reason to redesign.

QuoteThat sort of system puts a lot of pressure to be an idiot savant right out of the gates as it saves you a lot of XP in the long run.

Yet I have seen many players not do that. Which is why I maintain it is not a system issue, but a play issue. The system makes it cheaper to buy high in the beginning, but that only really makes sense if the GM runs a game where the idiot savant doesn't have to ever do anything other than a lightning calculations of the number of toothpicks spilled on the floor or whatever their shtick is (and not all GMs run that sort of game) and where the players are focus a fair amount of attention on how powerful their character is vs. some other theoretical character design (and not all players focus on character power like that).

QuoteBut in general it`s better to be really good at a few things than mediocre at a lot of things since you can only do one thing at once.

Not if you are required to do things that you are mediocre or worse at because play does not involve tightly designed parties that can parse out the roles of fighter, mage, face, etc. I run a lot of duet adventures and a lot of adventures where the PCs split up so that characters often have to make do with only their own resources. That makes the idiot savant a much less viable and hence less attractive build choice.

QuoteThat`s why in AD&D the game recognizes that a multiclassed 5 fighter/5 mu/5 cleric is vastly weaker than a character with 15 levels in any one class and sets things up accordingly.

My recollection from OD&D and AD&D was that multiclass characters divided XP amongst their classes. Since different classes required different amounts of XP to level, characters didn't usually have 5/5/5 as a level. They'd be more likely to end up with something like 5/4/6 or some such. At least that was my experience with an Elven F/M who eventually was a F/M/T when he topped out on levels for F and M. So I think we are in agreement here. It seems like D&D simplified XP costs to make them the same for each class by level and then simplified the leveling to treat the levels as something where you could choose the next level of another class so a 4th level fighter could pick up a level of mage or thief or something instead of a level of fighter and would then be 5th level or something. I'm not sure I understand the design though there. Are levels the same cost per level rather than increasing in cost as the level increased in number?

QuoteJuat prefer games like FATE and D&D where I don`t have to make a choice between making a character who`s hyperspecialized or a character who`s going to get overshadowed at what they`re best at by characters who are hyperspecialized.

"Juat"? You kind of lost me there.

Typo. Meant "just." On cell w stubby thumbs.

Yes for 1ed the exact example is off since you don`t get even advancement but the point was that a multiclass character is going to get a LOT more total levels if you add up all the levels but that`s OK because of how powerful specialization is. Just tend to not like games that make hyperspecialization cheap, games with levels avoid that in most cases. The FATE pyramid is the best thing about FATE since it avoids that as well.

After running a few sessions of Lamentations of the Flame Princess with my group, I've begun to broaden my horizons on the "Dead Level" phenomona...

I really think now it depends on what kind of fantasy game style you're running with your group. I've been running "Better than any man" and with the old school style of down and dirty fantasy...the lower power, less jazz approach really works... it keeps things grounded, and makes advancement easier...

However, when I run something more High Fantasy like Golarion, the more abilities of Pathfinder (Or 5th edition which is my preferred system for Level based fantasy these days) Seems like overall to be a better approach...

Surely more HP, increased chances to hit, and better saves are clear benefits of levelling. A 6th level Fighter in AD&D is superior to a 3rd level Fighter, even though he has no more special toggles or abilities on his character sheet. And that's not even touching on magic items.

Quote from: RandallS;843034The problem for OSR games is that to give every class some new ability every level, for many classes you either have to create a bunch of new abilities that are something that only someone with that ability could have any chance of success with or you have to take abilities that realistically anyone should be able to try with some chance of success and declare them impossible unless you have the special ability. Both are against the sensibilities of most players and GMs interested in OSR style games. Fortunately, most people interested in OSR games don't seem to notice, let alone care about dead levels.

Quote from: Baulderstone;843350That's true, but one thing I always found was that more mechanically-inclined players were drawn to those classes and casual players wanted nothing to do with them. Adding new shinies at every level of every class is providing no space in your game for casual players. Those casual players are less likely to be chatting in game forums, so its easy for them to be completely forgotten, even though they have made up a decent percentage of people in my game groups over the years.

Coming across the concept of 'dead levels' years ago on RPG forums, along with terms like 'character builds', made it clear to me that a lot of people played D&D for fundamentally different reasons than my group has been playing since 1979. I have players who have played nothing but fighters for 30+ years precisely because they don't want to learn a bunch of special abilities. Wanting a growing list of customizable special abilities to reference on a character sheet is a matter of personal preferences, not superior design.

Quote from: Haffrung;844255Wanting a growing list of customizable special abilities to reference on a character sheet is a matter of personal preferences, not superior design.

Speaking of things I'd like to burn into some peoples' flesh with the tip of a red-hot poker...

Most Uruguayan gamers (aside from an older core of the local hobby that started on 2e) were reared on 3.x D&D.  For them, their first experiences with 1e AD&D or BECMI style rule-sets was the OSR.  I was literally the guy who introduced the Rules Cyclopedia to the local hobby, as well as the 1e books, and the first guy to bring in OSR stuff.

So, some of these guys, when playing old-school D&D, find it strange when they level up and all they get sometimes is hit points.  The lack of feats and skill points, and even having to-hit bonuses or saving throws only change every few levels, seems strange to them.

But they get used to it after not too long.

Even so, my own preference is for the idea that you should get something worthwhile in every level, or feel like you are. Hence both my Arrows of Indra rules and my Appendix P rules are based on that idea.

I don't have anything against the idea that you get something every level.

My problem is that MOST of the time, in my experience, starting with 3e - there came the white-room comparison which showed how mish-mashed and unbalanced everything really was. There wasn't an idea that you should get something every level, but oddly that idea emerged out of the observations made in these white-room observations. Which exacerbated the optimum-build mentality.

The key, to me, is - if you're going to insist something cool is obtained every level, to balance it out against the respective conceits of your game. I don't believe all classes should be balanced based on damage output, or shit like that. I believe they should be representative of what they do best by the conceits of their game. And sure, by all means give them cool shit to do.

In my heartbreaker when you level you get 10 points to spend on a list of stuff.

the list is priced according to your class/archetype and there are caps on how many you can buy of a thing.

So typically when a Warrior levels

i) +1 Attack (1 point)
ii) + 1 Defence (1 point)
iii) + 1 HP - you can buy up to 3 (1 point each)
iv) + 1 to a skill level a skill can go up 1 point but you can put up many skills (2 points)
v)Gain a new skill 4 points
vi) gain a rank in a combat style (1 point)  

If you wanted to you could gain magical casting and pick one of the 6 casting types but for a Warrior that is 30 points.
If a warrior has casting they can pick up a new spell, formuale, name, binding or miracle  for 5 or add Manna for 3 per point

This gives you the mix between class based and skill based. You end up with strong archetypes Warrior/Rogue/Magus who specialize in Combat/Skills/Magic as opposed to most classless systems were people often tend towards uniform generalists, but the development of the character can be changed by you. Note that there is a standard "spend" for each archetype if you either don't want the option to vary or can't be arsed.
Also note that "special powers" that are so tied to the D&D class system and lead to so much system bloat are tied to skills, combat styles or whatever so if the DM creates 10 new archetypes for a game based in say Pre Columbian Mexico then you can do that from the toolkits you have and there is no need to generate new cool powerz.

I understand some people would find the lack of special widgets bland but I much prefer to focus on the role play than the cool power list.

Quote from: jibbajibba;845115In my heartbreaker when you level you get 10 points to spend on a list of stuff.

That was how Red Shetland worked. You leveld up and had points you could spend on acquiring new skills from your profession, or try to pick up something from outside it through practice or a teacher. Speeding up the natural learning process.

Quote from: Omega;845208That was how Red Shetland worked. You leveld up and had points you could spend on acquiring new skills from your profession, or try to pick up something from outside it through practice or a teacher. Speeding up the natural learning process.

For me its a natural extension to 2e thieves' skills